


Ain't Love a Kick

by roboticonography



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Amnesia, F/M, Light Angst, Surprise Married
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/pseuds/roboticonography
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wakes up after the crash to find his life has changed dramatically - the main change being, he's married to Peggy Carter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Dean Martin song, [Ain't that a Kick in the Head?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb4P-MZMzJs)

Steve wakes in darkness.

 

He can’t open his eyes, and there’s something off about his hearing. He thinks at first that his head has swelled to twice its normal size, but no—he’s wrapped in bandages, layers and layers of them, covering the entire top half of his head.

 

It takes him a little while to work them loose, which means he probably shouldn’t, but since he’s started he figures he might as well go all the way. Nothing falls apart when he gets them off, and there’s no pain, and he takes both of those as good signs.

 

It takes a few blinks for his eyes to adjust, after which he’s able to focus on individual objects, if he squints. It’s a small room, plain white walls, shades drawn. There’s a smell: antiseptic, with a chaser of stale sweat that he thinks might be coming from the bed, and him. A hospital.

 

And in the corner of the room—

 

She’s in civilian clothes, with a coat overtop, and she looks slightly rumpled, like he caught her in the middle of a nap. But she’s as luminous as ever, the brightest point in any room she occupies. _Peggy_.

 

“Steve?”

 

She gapes at him, like he’s just come back from the dead. Which maybe he has. It would explain the bandages, and how awful he feels.

 

The crash. The water. He’d blacked out, he must have. But somehow, he’d survived. And she’d found him.

 

“Pe—” His tongue is a rusty gate, clumsy with disuse. “Peggy.”

 

She jumps at him; he puts up his arms to catch her, astonished, but not unwilling. She curls up against his chest, so sweetly, and he holds her, just the way he’s dreamed of doing since the first time he saw her.

 

“Hi,” he whispers, at a loss for anything else to say.

 

She gives a watery sniffle in return.

 

He rests his hand on the back of her head, his fingers sinking into the glossy curls there. She’s soft and warm and she smells incredible, like fresh flowers.

 

She cranes her neck and kisses his cheeks, his jaw, before finally landing her lips on his. He keeps his mouth closed as much as he can; he’s very aware of the fact that he probably doesn’t taste too good just now.

 

Afterwards, she touches the back of her hand to his cheeks and forehead, which isn’t going to tell her much; he feels like he’s got to be blushing at all of this tender treatment.

 

Her hair is longer than it was when they said goodbye, her face slightly fuller. It looks good on her.

 

He’s not quite up to complete sentences yet, but he manages, “How long?”

 

“You’ve been—asleep—for just over a month.”

 

It’s strange, holding her. Awkward. Not just because it’s new; there seems to be… a lot more of her than usual. She’s almost sliding off the tiny cot.

 

She’s expecting, he realizes with a start.

 

“Darling?” She peers at his face inquisitively.

 

“You’re…” He gestures to her non-existent waistline. He knows it’s none of his business, but it doesn’t add up. There’s no way she could be showing this much in a month, and she couldn’t exactly hide something like that under a uniform.

 

“I know.” She gives a long-suffering sigh. “I’m like a watermelon on stilts. And I’ve gone up an entire shoe size, if you can believe it.” Her hand moves to span her belly—which is when he catches sight of the ring, and knows for sure that she’s lying to him.

 

“How long have I really been out?”

 

She blinks at him in alarm. “Steve—it’s been just over a month. Do you not…” She takes a breath, as though trying to calm herself. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

 

A sheet of ice and snow, rushing up to meet him. He’d closed his eyes. “Talking to you on the radio,” he says, trying not to let on that his heart is trying to hammer its way out of his chest. “Saying goodbye.”

 

“Radio? What radio? What—” The colour drains from her face. “On the _Valkyrie_ , you mean.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You don’t remember… anything after that?”

 

“Just—just the landing.”

 

She covers her mouth, like she’s about to be sick, and he feels awful for bringing it up.

 

“Not much of it,” he assures her. “I remember being thrown, and I must’ve hit my head and blacked out. The next thing I know, I’m here. Where is here, anyhow?”

 

“New York,” she says, in a strange, hollow voice. “You’re in New York, Steve. You’ve been here since the war ended.”

 

“The war’s over? We won?”

 

“I think I’d better get the doctor,” she tells him. And then she dashes from the room.

 

*

 

Peggy sits in the doctor’s office for an hour. As he talks, and she listens, she feels her body melding with the uncomfortable wooden chair, calcifying, taking root.

 

Only weeks ago, she sat in this same chair, and listened to this same doctor tell her that Steve was most likely going to die in the next twenty-four hours. And now, he’s wide awake, talking, moving. It’s like a miracle. Only…

 

Retrograde amnesia. Such a benign assembly of syllables, to describe such a horrifying concept.

 

But Steve is still Steve. According to a morning of rigorous tests, he knows his name and personal details, he understands where he is and what’s happened, and he is able to make new memories. He simply has a five-year gap, like a finger-smudge on a charcoal drawing, a swath of lifetime that doesn’t exist for him anymore.

 

Five years and seven months, to be exact. The entirety of their courtship, engagement, and marriage.

 

When it’s apparent that she’s taken in all the information she can, she thanks the doctor, and asks when she’ll be able to take Steve home.

 

The doctor looks surprised. “Mrs. Rogers,” he begins, with a gentleness Peggy despises.

 

“You said he’s completely healed, physically. And that it might help if he were introduced to familiar surroundings.” It’s the one fact, the one pinprick ray of light that she’s been able to glean from his entire lecture.

 

“It might help, yes. Or it might not. It’s possible that this is permanent. You need to accept—”

 

“If I’d accepted your telling me he was nearly dead, he wouldn’t be here now.” She hefts herself up, waving away the offer of assistance. “If you can have the paperwork prepared, I’ll go and collect him.”

 

“He might not want to go with you.”

 

“I’m his wife,” she declares, austerely. “I’ll persuade him.”

 

*

 

Outside the door of Steve’s room, all the confidence she’s worked up dissipates. She has to steel herself against tears, but it’s only a moment, and it passes.

 

She knocks before entering the room, waits to be invited in. Steve is seated on the bed, in his hospital pajamas and robe. She’d forgotten, until he pulled off the bandages, that they’d had to shave his head for the surgery. His scalp is like a baby’s, pink and perfect, and covered with a soft blond fuzz, a complement to the darker stubble on his face.

 

“Hello,” she says, injecting her tone with a lightness she doesn’t feel.

 

He watches with doleful eyes as she walks over to her usual chair and sits down. She’s acutely aware of how fat and ungainly she is—particularly compared to the lithe, combat-ready young woman he remembers, the one who always had an extra sway in her hips and smoulder in her smile for him.

 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says.

 

She brushes it aside. “Nonsense. None of this is your fault.”

 

“The nurse was telling me it happened in the line of duty. But she wouldn’t give me specifics.”

 

“Yes, well, she doesn’t have the specifics, because they’re classified. You were captured—that part was intentional. You were supposed to be taken to HYDRA HQ, which would have helped us immensely, since we—by which I mean SHIELD, which is the intelligence outfit that you and I now both work for—have no idea where they’re presently located. Instead of taking you to his leader, though, the young idiot thought he’d put paid to you once and for all. He shot you in the back of the head—twice—and left you for dead. When the team didn’t hear from you at the appointed hour, Dugan caught up with the bastard, and he confessed to what he’d done. Which is good news, since, as you can see, I’m in no condition to be chasing after anyone in the name of revenge.”

 

Steve is wincing, and Peggy feels like a brute for sounding so cavalier. The truth is, if she talked sensibly about the thing, she’d break down entirely, and neither of them is equipped to deal with that at the moment.

 

But then he says, very quietly, “Could we… not talk so loud?”

 

His ears are sensitive—the doctor had mentioned it. His eyesight, too.

 

“Of course,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

She leans closer, so that she doesn’t have to hiss at him. “You must have questions.”

 

“A few. I don’t really know where to start.”

 

He’s looking at her hands, which are clasped over her stomach, as has become her habit since she no longer has any lap to speak of. More specifically, he’s looking at her wedding ring.

 

She fiddles with her fingers, unaccountably self-conscious, even though it’s just _Steve_ , for God’s sake. “I have yours at home, in case you’re wondering. You’re not in the habit of wearing it on work outings.”

 

He nods as if he understands, but looks a bit bewildered, as though she’s started speaking an alien language. “Huh.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“So. You and me.”

 

“Yes. After the war ended, I decided to make an honest man of you.”

 

He smiles at that, and looks at her a bit bashfully, which is almost too much to take.

 

“It’ll be six years this coming September,” she continues. “September ninth. That’s the sugar anniversary, so you’ll have to get me something sweet. You mustn’t forget.” The words are out of her mouth before she realizes.

 

But Steve just nods, seriously, as though he’s back in basic training and she’s just imparted a key piece of information that’s going to help him stay alive. She suspected that if he had a pencil, he’d be taking notes.

 

“You like chocolates?” he asks, as though she needs a further reminder that he has no recollection of their entire marriage.

 

“Yes, very much. Proper English chocolates, though. Not what passes for chocolate here.” Despite the distance and the expense, Steve always manages to get a tin of Quality Street for her birthday. Not that he has any idea when that is, now.

 

“No Hershey bars?”

 

“Absolutely not.”

 

Unthinking, she reaches out to touch his face, running her hand over the bristles on his jaw. He turns and presses his cheek against her palm, his eyes drifting closed—a movement so familiar it makes her heart leap.

 

“My darling,” she murmurs. “Would you like to come home with me?” For all her bluster in the doctor’s office, she won’t force him to do anything he isn’t comfortable with.

 

He opens his eyes again. He looks dazed, exhausted, and for a moment she thinks he might say no.

 

“Okay,” he whispers.


	2. Chapter 2

The most brilliant prank Steve ever pulled in school, with Bucky’s help, was very simple: the two boys came into the classroom an hour early, and moved everything on the teacher’s desk exactly four inches to the left. All day long, Steve watched her drop things and knock things over, marvelling at how such a small change could wreak such havoc.

 

Just now, though, he’s inclined to sympathize. He recognizes the city and its touchstones, but nothing is quite the same.

 

They drive to a neighbourhood that’s completely new to Steve—because, from the looks of it, it’s completely new, in general. The streets are long and curving; there are no four-way intersections, just a seemingly interminable maze of drives. It reminds Steve of a pasteboard model he’d once seen, in the ad office where he used to work: paper houses, paper families. They pass iterations of the exact same playground two, maybe three times.

 

Peggy announces, “Here we are,” and they cruise along yet another row of sweet little houses, all of them painted in cheery colours. The lawns almost are too vividly green to be real, each one painstakingly manicured; each one, that is, except the ragged patch of grass adjacent to the driveway Peggy pulls into. The one sporting a mailbox with _ROGERS_ stencilled on the side.

 

Steve is slightly taken aback. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he’d always assumed that if he and Peggy ever married, they’d live in the city proper.

 

Peggy, still fairly spry in spite of the extra cargo, squeezes out from behind the wheel and walks around to help him out of the car while he’s still trying to decide what he thinks of all of it.

 

Every other house on the block is trimmed in white, as far as Steve can tell. By contrast, the Rogers residence has brick-red window shutters to complement its sunny yellow façade. It’s a small touch, as far as individuality goes, but it cheers Steve up a little as they head inside.

 

His reaction must be showing on his face, because the first thing Peggy does, after making them each a cup of tea, is sit him down and explain to him how the GI Bill had made it cheaper to own a house in this neighbourhood than it would have been to continue renting their tiny, dilapidated apartment in Brooklyn.

 

“So this is all ours?”

 

“Yes. King of your very own castle. How do you like that?”

 

Steve can’t think of anything polite to say.

 

Peggy puts his cup in the sink and says, “Come on, then.”

 

The house consists of a main floor and an attic, the latter being used for storage—though, as Peggy explains, it’s designed to be converted into additional bedrooms, should the need arise. (Steve wonders how many kids they were planning on, but it seems rude to ask.)

 

It’s a very logical layout, one that obviously appeals to Peggy’s orderly mind: living room, dining room, and kitchen on one side, bedrooms and bathroom on the other. Public space and private space. The living room furniture is well-worn, but clean, polished, and in good repair: there’s a sofa, a radio cabinet, a couple of chairs, some little tables. Bookshelves all along one wall. There are photos on the mantel of people Steve doesn’t recognize, and potted plants all over the place. Everything is neat and organized, which Steve suspects has nothing to do with him.

 

Peggy is far more polite than he’s used to: she points out the house’s little quirks with the blank-faced courtesy she typically reserves for strangers and superiors. It must be upsetting for her, he thinks, to have to show her husband around his own home like he’s a guest. But, as always, she’s meeting the challenge with her stiff upper lip firmly in place.

 

“This was to be your art studio,” she tells him, pushing open the door to the smaller bedroom. “But I’m afraid there’s been a slight change in the plan.”

 

The transition is obviously still in progress. A draftsman’s table is folded away in one corner, ready to be relocated; next to it, components of a partially-assembled crib are scattered on the floor.

 

“What, we couldn’t just put the baby in a drawer, or something?”

 

Peggy smiles. “That’s exactly what you said the first time. It didn’t fly then, either.”

 

“When my mom brought me home, she put me in a—”

 

“A suitcase, yes, you told me. But I’ve just got a new luggage set, and I’d rather not ruin it, if it’s all the same to you.”

 

One wall of the nursery is painted a soft, mint green; if the faded print bedsheets on the floor are any indication, it’s a job still in progress.

 

“I can help finish this up,” Steve offers.

 

Not meeting his eyes, Peggy remarks, “I’ve been rather lazy, I’m afraid.”

 

“I doubt that,” replies Steve, quietly.

 

Her hand is very close to his, and he thinks about taking it; before he makes up his mind, however, she’s on the move again, directing him next door to the master bedroom.

 

It’s a very ordinary room of its type. There’s a large, heavy dresser; a vanity table, stocked with a number of mysterious bottles, pots, and jars; and a double bed, flanked on either side by a night-table. The wallpaper has a floral pattern, as does the quilted comforter on the bed, and the room itself smells a little like flowers. All the furniture matches.

 

It’s a lot more… decorative… than anywhere Steve’s ever lived. He guesses this must be what’s meant by the phrase _feminine touch_.

 

Peggy unbuttons her cardigan and folds it neatly over the chair by the vanity. “You’ll sleep in here,” she announces, with an imperious little wave.

 

“With you?”

 

She looks at him askance. “Unless you’d rather try your luck on the settee.”

 

“What’s a—”

 

“The sofa, Steve.”

 

He nods. He’s already noted the size of the living room sofa, and its unsuitability for sleeping, but he’s not about to kick a pregnant woman out of her own bed.

 

As if reading his mind, she remarks, “I’d sleep on it myself, but my back won’t have it. So I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me.”

 

It irks him a little that she’s already decided this for him—even though it’s the most sensible conclusion, and probably the same one he would have reached on his own. He never pictured himself being the kind of husband who would let his wife walk all over him. But it’s a tough situation for both of them, and he wants to make an effort to get along.

 

“I can always camp out on the porch swing,” he suggests, trying to make her smile.

 

“We haven’t got one.”

 

“The back seat of the car? I could roll down the window and stick my feet out.”

 

He watches her colour rise, her face like a gathering storm. “I’m glad you find this entire exercise so bloody amusing!” she roars. Then she turns on her heel and stalks off.

 

Steve is totally at a loss for whether or not he ought to follow.

 

*

 

Peggy huddles over the bathroom sink, gripping the porcelain, her body wracked with silent sobs.

 

She isn’t precisely sure why she’s crying now, with Steve home, whole and mostly healthy, when she hasn’t shed a single tear in all the long weeks he’s been lying in hospital.

 

They’ve been incredibly lucky, she reminds herself, and the fact of the matter is that she needs to buck up and deal with it.

 

It isn’t even that she minds him making jokes. She understands that he didn’t mean any harm, and that pregnancy has the effect of magnifying every tiny slight, real or perceived. But she doesn’t particularly relish being reminded of her undesirability as a bedmate just now.

 

She can hear him shuffling around in the hall, trying to decide whether to knock on the door. He has no idea how to relate to her, how to take care of her, and it shocks her to realize how much she’s come to like being taken care of by Steve.

 

“Do you have something you’d like to say?” she inquires. “Or do you need the toilet?” She’s being very selfish, and her awareness of that just makes her that much more inclined to be rude.

 

“Both,” he shoots back.

 

Perhaps, she thinks, she _will_ make him sleep in the car.

 

“If you’re gonna be in there the rest of the day, do you mind telling me which one of these potted plants you like the least?”

 

She flings the door open. “You wouldn’t dare!”

 

He’s leaning against the wall, hands clasped in front of him, grinning.

 

“Are you taking the mickey?”

 

“If that means giving you a hard time, then… a little bit, yeah.”

 

She folds her arms and glares.

 

Steve has the decency to look appropriately contrite. “Let’s start over?” he asks. “I’m sorry I teased you.”

 

“I’m sorry I shouted.”

 

“I’m sorry I threatened to water your plants.”

 

“And _I’m_ sorry that _you_ have no manners to speak of.”

 

He takes that one with a smile and a shrug.

 

He’s still _Steve_. Not the Steve she knows and loves, not quite—but there are enough similarities to confuse her, make her forget she isn’t talking to her husband. Instead, she’s talking to a young soldier who’s been (secretly, he thinks) in love with a girl for over a year, but who hasn’t found the right opportunity to tell her how he feels. A man for whom the war ended only this morning. It’s a chasm of experience that feels impossible to span just now.

 

She steels herself, then says, “If you’re not comfortable here, Howard still keeps a townhouse in Manhattan, you could—”

 

“Do you not want me here?”

 

“Of course I want you here.”

 

“Then quit sending me away.”

 

She feels herself crumbling again. “Steve…”

 

He steps closer, and takes her hand in his. “It’d be a lot easier if this was the kind of problem one of us could beat the tar out of, wouldn’t it?”

 

She nods, and gives his hand a squeeze, which he returns.

 

*

 

For dinner, Peggy heats up a covered dish chosen at random from the fridge, which looks to be chock-full of similar offerings. She explains that their well-meaning and curious neighbours have been stopping in since Steve’s been away. “I couldn’t tell them the entire truth, of course, but they know that you’ve been in hospital.” She rattles off the names: the Scotts, the Larsons, the Gardiners, and the Packards, and all their various assorted offspring.

 

The shepherd’s pie isn’t bad, in Steve’s opinion. Peggy seems to have a more discerning palate, and picks at the edges of her piece before getting up to make herself cheese on toast. There’s easily enough to feed four people, so Steve tries not to make a pig of himself—but he doesn’t refuse when Peggy asks him if he wants to finish what’s left, to spare them having to eat it again.

 

While he’s cleaning his plate for the third time, Peggy makes a note to help her remember to whom the empty dish belongs. “I suppose we’ll have to put something in it to take back. Do you have any ideas?”

 

He tries to think. “Thank-you note?”

 

“Not exactly what I had in mind.” She rifles through the pantry cupboard until she comes up with a box of cake mix. “I should be able to manage something, but they’ll be disappointed it isn’t up to my usual standard.”

 

“I didn’t know you liked to bake.”

 

“I don’t. I loathe it. You do all the baking.”

 

He cocks his head to one side, examining her face for a tell. “Come on.”

 

“It’s true. You’ve been kind enough to let me take the credit, but you’re the one who’s helped solidify our position in the neighbourhood pecking order. Biscuits, pies, cakes—and, on one memorable occasion, chocolate eclairs.” She licks her lips, which makes Steve want to kiss them that much more.

 

“You’re pulling my leg.”

 

“I would never,” she says solemnly.

 

They take care of the dishes: he washes, and she dries. Usually they’d do it the other way, she explains, and seems a little put out when he won’t comply. But Steve prefers it like this, because he has no idea where anything goes, and he hates to keep asking.

 

Peggy finds some crime show on the radio, and they listen for a while, relieved of the pressure of trying to make conversation. They sit politely apart on the sofa at first, but then she leans into his side, so she can put her feet up. They swell, she explains, with walking all day. Steve is touched by the admission—during the war, Peggy wouldn’t admit to feeling pain from a gunshot wound, much less discomfort from swollen feet.

 

The crime show ends, and a comedy program about a schoolteacher comes on. It’s pretty clever, but Peggy can barely keep her eyes open; by the second act, her head is lolling against Steve’s shoulder. He drapes his arm over the back of the sofa, trying to give her a bit more room, but she just snuggles into the gap, her arm flopping around his waist. She’s warm, and soft—and Steve, who has been following the show all right until this point, loses the plot completely, engrossed in watching Peggy sleep. He can’t remember ever having seen her so relaxed. It’s clear that she’s really, solidly out when she starts to snore, adorably.

 

He slides his arms around her as gently as he can, and lifts her up. She stirs, but doesn’t wake, curling against his chest as he carries her into the bedroom. He holds her a little closer than he needs to, for just a second, before lowering her onto the bed.

 

Undressing her is a step he just can’t bring himself to take. But he takes off her shoes, her wristwatch, her earrings, and does whatever he can to make her comfortable, before tucking the comforter around her.

 

Then he takes one of the pillows, and the throw from the bottom of the bed, and heads back to the sofa for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got rid of the chapter titles because they weren't working for me.

“You don’t have to knock, Steve.”

 

The statement comes out more sharply than she’d intended. Peggy knows that her aching back and lack of sleep are making her fractious. However, understanding it is one thing; mitigating it, another entirely.

 

Steve enters the bedroom the way he does everything now: politely, apologetically. She’s already had her fill of it, after only a day.

 

“Didn’t want to barge in on you,” he explains.

 

“Don’t worry, I’m quite decent.” She doesn’t take her eyes off her reflection, but she can feel his gaze sweeping down and then up, taking in her dressing-gown, her half-finished toilette. Lingering, she thinks, on her décolletage, which has become even more ample of late. When their eyes meet in the mirror, he looks away, bashful.

 

“How’s your morning?”

 

“Fine, apart from the merry game of football being played with my kidneys all night long.”

 

She pats her belly, and Steve winces in sympathy.

 

“Can’t be helped,” she says briskly.

 

He perches on the edge of the bed, which surprises her a little—he’s always liked to sit in that spot and watch her get ready, but she didn’t think it would occur to him now. She takes it as an encouraging sign, and goes back to work on her hair.

 

After observing for a spell, he asks, “Are you going out?”

 

“I’ve got to take some of those dishes back to the neighbours. If you don’t feel up to coming along, I can make your excuses.”

 

“Yeah, I… I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

 

She’d expected as much, and nods.

 

“Do you sleep with all those pins?”

 

“Sometimes. You didn’t think my hair curled naturally, did you?” It’s an unfair question; she knows that is precisely what he believed at one time.

 

“I guess I never thought about it much,” he says, evading the question tidily. “It looks uncomfortable.”

 

“It doesn’t bother me. I can set it right before I go to bed, and put a scarf over it until the morning.”

 

He looks at her dubiously. “I guess if you can sleep standing in a ditch in the pouring rain, you can sleep in a getup like that.”

 

She mists a little perfume onto her hairbrush. “It’s never interfered with our night-time recreation,” she assures him, and runs the brush quickly through her hair once on either side, smoothing the fat curls into glossy waves.

 

His cheeks are stained pink. It’s been a long time since she’s been able to say _anything_ about sex that would embarrass him, and it’s not as much fun as she remembers it being.

 

“What can I help you with, Steve?” If he insists on behaving like a guest, then she’s going to treat him like one.

 

He immediately stands up. “Do I have a hat?”

 

“You have at least one. Try the top shelf of the cupboard.” When things had looked dire, Peggy had taken everything of Steve’s out of the front hall, so she wouldn’t risk bursting into tears over something as ordinary as a tan raincoat.

 

“Which cupboard?”

 

She points over her shoulder at their shared closet.

 

She watches as his reflection stands in the middle of the room for a moment, then heads for the nightstand. She isn’t sure whether she ought to stop him; perhaps he’s remembering something, and a word or touch from her could break the newly-formed bond.

 

He bends down and opens the front of the nightstand to peer inside, then snaps it shut and moves away quickly. She knows exactly what he’s just seen: an innocuous blue-and-white drugstore tin of _Hygienic rubber products_.

 

“Bit like locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen,” Peggy observes, and he blushes more deeply still.

 

“We weren’t trying to have a baby?”

 

“Trying?” she echoes, with a laugh. “No. No, you and I have an astounding lack of impulse control. The only real surprise was that it took this long to happen.”

 

He looks pained, and Peggy feels brutish.

 

She relents with, “We were both quite excited, though. You especially.”

 

“You’re not excited anymore?”

 

She smoothes her dressing-gown over the gentle swell of her belly. “The timing isn’t ideal.”

 

Steve looks down at his hands. “No, I guess not.”

 

“What were you looking for?”

 

“You said the cupboard. This is the only cupboard in here.”

 

 _Oh._ She remembers this now. “The closet,” she translates. “We call it a cupboard. We, the English, I mean, not we, the Rogerses.”

 

“Then what do you call a cupboard?” His face is innocent enough, but she knows he thinks he’s being clever.

 

“I call it a smack on the ear, if you’re not careful.”

 

He grins at her in the mirror, just like his old self, and for a second she thinks she might burst into tears. Bloody pregnancy. Fortunately, it passes.

 

“Top shelf,” she informs him. “Brown, with a black band. You can’t miss it, it’s the one that’s hopelessly out of style. What do you want it for?”

 

“Thought I’d go take a look at the backyard.”

 

“Is the light still bothering your eyes?”

 

He gives a grunt of affirmation.

 

“There should be a pair of sunglasses of yours up there too.”

 

“There’s all kinds of stuff.” He pulls down a pair of house slippers, a scarf, a single glove, a longer scarf, and a cabled sweater. His winter things had been collecting all over the house; the day he’d had his accident, the last of the snow had only just gone.

 

She remembers how relieved she was, not to have Steve fretting over the prospect of her slipping on a patch of ice; she’d teased him, saying the grass would never grow because he’d salted the walk so much.

 

He stands there, with his armload of clothes and sundries, and looks at her quizzically.

 

“That’s what happens when you don’t put your things away. Safe bind, safe find.” She tries for a careless tone, but winds up instead sounding like her mother—an intolerable situation all around.

 

He produces the unfortunate hat from the pile, and brushes away an accumulation of lint. “Looks fine to me,” he remarks, to no one in particular, and claps it onto his head, looking at her as if daring her to argue.

 

“Exactly,” she agrees. “You’re five years out of date.”

 

He stuffs everything else back into the closet without another word.

 

*

 

While Peggy is on her strange mission to dole out mediocre box cake to all the neighbourhood, Steve takes the opportunity to investigate his surroundings. The doctor seemed to think that being around familiar things might jog his memory, and he’s willing to give it a try.

 

The backyard doesn’t do anything for him, one way or the other: it’s just grass, and a couple of flower beds with no flowers. He thinks about mowing the lawn, just for something to do, but there’s no mower in the little garden shed—just a snow shovel and some rock salt, and gardening tools in a pile, going a little rusty.

 

Back in the house, he confines his research to the living room, to avoid a repeat of the bedroom nightstand.

 

He spends at least half an hour examining the photos on the mantel. He recognizes a few of the faces; it’s good to know that he and Peggy still keep in touch with Gabe, and Dum Dum, and Jim Morita, who seems to have started a family of his own. There’s one of Peggy with Howard Stark; it looks like they’re on a boat, and there’s a cake with candles. Steve wonders whose birthday it was. An older photo features a group of people he doesn’t recognize, including a couple who seem about the right age to be Peggy’s parents. In the next frame, a portrait of a young soldier; he has Peggy’s sharp jaw and coal-dark eyes.

 

Strangest of all is their wedding photo, which hangs in a frame all its own on the wall above the radio cabinet. Peggy is lovely, in a dark dress with white piping and trim, and a stylish hat with a small veil of netting. Steve is wearing his dress uniform and a big, goofy grin, his hat tucked under his arm. They’re standing, hand-in-hand, on the steps of a stone building, an archway clearly visible behind them.

 

It’s a nice picture, but it gives him an odd, sick feeling to look at a photo of himself and not remember anything about the place and time it was taken. There’s so much he wants to know about that moment, about every moment of their lives together, but thinking too hard on it just makes him feel like he’s got a head full of static.

 

He turns his attention to the bookshelves; by process of elimination, he figures Peggy must have a taste for English detective novels and, surprisingly, Regency romance. She still uses train tickets and candy wrappers as bookmarks, even though paper and cloth must be easier to get these days. _Waste not, want not._ He finds it reassuring when he uncovers those little traces, echoes of the Peggy he knows best.

 

He finds a carpet bag behind the sofa, which is how he discovers that Peggy knits—which accounts for the unlikely number of scarves and sweaters in the house that were clearly made to his measurements. Underneath a book on needlepoint for beginners is a half-finished miniature jacket, in creamy lamb’s wool, on tiny needles. Steve puts his finger through the one completed sleeve, then hastily tucks the jacket away, just as he found it.

 

He hasn’t seen any needlepoint around the house, so he opens the pattern book out of curiosity.

 

At first he can’t process what he’s looking at—it definitely doesn’t look like any sampler  _he’s_ ever seen. The entire book is like that. Just… illustrations of naked people. In pairs. Doing the sort of thing naked people in pairs tend to do.

 

He flips to the title page of the book, which is when he figures out what he should have realized sooner—someone has cleverly disguised a volume called _Sex Techniques for Wives and Husbands_ , using the dust jacket of _Novice Needlepoint_.

 

The book seems like it’s been well-read, or at least thumbed through a few times. He’s not sure what conclusion to draw from the fact that a few of the pages are dog-eared.

 

Near the end of the book, there’s a whole five pages devoted to comfortable positions for women in the later months of pregnancy. Steve’s eyes glide over the words without gleaning much from them; he stares at the illustrations, feeling feverish.

 

When he comes back to himself, he snaps the book shut, puts it back exactly as he found it, and hides the bag behind the sofa again.

 

He tries not to let it preoccupy him, but the images are burned into his brain. He can’t help wondering which one of them bought the book, or if they picked it out together, or if it was some kind of gag gift from one of their friends. Not to mention why they might have something like that in the first place—were they having trouble making it work on their own? Were they bored with each other? Or was it just a little way of enhancing what Peggy had called their _night-time recreation_?

 

When she gets home an hour later, his imagination can’t help superimposing her face and features over some of the figures in the book. He’s ashamed of himself, which is ridiculous, because the fact of the matter is that he’s spent the entirety of his career as a soldier imagining Peggy naked on a near-daily basis, and never felt anything more than the occasional twinge of vaguely Catholic guilt about doing so. And now, he’s actually married to her—and, according to the available evidence, has seen her naked for real at least once—and he feels like a heel for even considering it.

 

“Darling, you don’t look well,” she tells him, touching his forehead.

 

With her standing and him sitting, he’s eye-level with her bosom, which suddenly seems like an inviting place to rest his cheek. He doesn’t, but it’s tempting.

 

“You should lie down, if you’re feeling poorly.” She strokes the back of his neck with cool fingers, drawing him closer, and he closes his eyes, feeling wonderful and kind of awful all at once.

 

He _does_ want to lie down. He wonders if she’d lie down with him, if he asked.

 

“Yeah, maybe I—I might take a shower,” he stammers out, and makes his escape without waiting to hear if she has a counter-proposal.

 

Maybe if he hides in the bathroom for a while, he’ll be able to look her in the eye again when he comes out.

 

*

 

Peggy has time to potter around the house and warm up dinner before Steve shows his face again. She’s relieved to note that he seems in better spirits. It was foolish of her, to try to hold him like that, so intimately—it’s not surprising that he bolted.

 

Neither of them can muster much enthusiasm for tonight’s casserole; Mrs. Larson is a lovely woman, but cooking is not one of her gifts, and Peggy has never been fond of broccoli in any case. Steve, who can be compulsive about not wasting food, chips away at it gamely, until Peggy tells him she’s having a sandwich, and offers to make him one as well.

 

“How’s that?” she asks, setting a plate in front of him.

 

He examines the neat little sandwich halves, cut on the diagonal; the pile of crisps; the pickle spear. It’s as much of an effort as she cares to make at the end of the day, but he’s looking at it as though it’s some sort of culinary miracle.

 

“Don’t look so shocked.” She sits down and takes a bite of her own sandwich. “It’s cheese on bread. Not exactly haute cuisine.”

 

“It’s great.” He flashes her a winning smile. “Thanks.”

 

“Did you sleep last night?”

 

“I—yeah.”

 

“Steve,” she says, warningly.

 

“Not much,” he admits. “An hour or so. But it’s fine, I’m fine.”

 

“You need to rest. The doctor said proper sleep was crucial to your recovery. That means a proper bed, and unfortunately, we only have the one. So it’s either that, or back to the hospital.”

 

“I’m not going back there.”

 

“Then it’s settled.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

 

She puts down her sandwich and fixes him with a look. “Unless something’s changed since this morning, there’s a good deal wrong with you.”

 

“Nothing physical, I mean.”

 

“ _Steve_.”

 

He says nothing, but chews vigorously, the muscles in his jaw standing out.

 

“ _What_ do you think is going to happen?” she demands, exasperated. “Do you think I’m going to climb on top of you in the night? I can promise that I have at least _that_ much self-restraint.”

 

He reddens. “I didn’t say that.”

 

“Then what’s the matter?”

 

“It’s just taking some getting used to. It feels like… like I stepped into someone else’s life, and I’m trying to take his place.”

 

Before she can stop herself, Peggy does the one thing she’s sworn not to do in front of him since his arrival home: she begins to cry. Not a torrent of sobs, but a quiet, steady stream, hot tears sliding down her cheeks before she can blink them away.

 

“Oh,” says Steve, alarmed. “Oh, no. Please. I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s not you,” she splutters, searching for a handkerchief. Naturally, she doesn’t have one. “It’s the bloody baby.”

 

“What’s it doing?”

 

“It’s not _doing_ anything! Jesus Christ, Steve.” She uses her table napkin to blot at her face as best she can.

 

He leaves his seat and drops onto one knee beside her chair. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, softer.

 

“Stop apologizing. I’m not upset, I’m livid.” The statement is undercut by a loud hiccup. “Bugger.”

 

Steve chuckles.

 

“It’s not—” she hiccups two more times in rapid succession, “not funny.”

 

“No, ma’am.” He grins.

 

“Make—make yourself useful and get me—get me some water.” All the commotion seems to have woken the baby, who does a few somersaults before delivering a decisive kick to Peggy’s bladder. “Don’t _you_ start,” she mutters.

 

Steve refills her glass from the pitcher on the table and hands it to her. He continues to kneel by her side, one hand on the back of her chair, while she drinks.

 

As she puts the glass down and turns to thank him, he lifts up a little and kisses her, very sweetly. She cradles his face in both hands and holds him there, coaxing his lips open with her own. It’s careful, tender, in the way that first kisses often are; not what Peggy is accustomed to, but lovely, all the same.

 

When they part at last, his colour is high, his mouth slack and inviting. His eyes are still closed, long eyelashes casting a shadow on his cheeks.

 

Firmly, she tells him, “You’re sleeping in the bed, Steve.”

 

He nods. “Okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

Steve finds the pajamas in the last drawer of the dresser. Royal blue with white trim. Monogrammed, no less. He lifts one sleeve gingerly; the silk flows between his fingers, smooth as water. Definitely not the kind of thing he would ever buy for himself, not in a million years, but the initials on the breast pocket are his, as is the size.

 

He feels like he’s putting on another man’s clothes as he slips them on.

 

It occurs to him, as he’s doing up the buttons, that Peggy must have bought them for him. It’s an intimate sort of gift, the kind a wife might give her husband—a birthday, maybe, or an anniversary. He pictures her picking out the colour, giving his size to the shop assistant. _Yes,_ she’d say, looking pleased, _I think these will do nicely._ Maybe she even bought a similar pair for herself. Maybe that’s who they are now: the kind of people who wear matching pajamas.

 

Peggy emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam: hair in a tidy towel turban, skin pink and glowing. She’s wearing the same silky black robe from that morning, the red sash cinched just under her breasts and tied in a bow.

 

She looks fresh and lovely, and Steve is nearly overcome by the urge to kiss her, to lay his hands on her, to tug on the ends of that little red bow until it falls away. _Not like it would be the first time_ , his brain reminds him. His muscle memory has been decent so far. He thinks he could be good for her.

 

She stops short when she sees him. For a wild second, all he can think is that she somehow knows he was picturing her naked, and he nearly apologizes before common sense takes over.

 

She looks him up and down. Her mouth twists up a little, but all she says is, “Oh.”

 

The pajamas. He could kick himself for being so insensitive; he should have asked first. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—I can take ‘em off if—”

 

She starts to laugh.

 

“I’d forgotten you still had those. They were a Christmas gift from Howard,” she tells him, her cheeks dimpling. “You never liked them, but you’re too far polite to throw them away.”

 

That’s a relief, at least. Steve scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “Yeah, they’re… not really my style.”

 

“No.”

 

“They were all I could find.”

 

“That’s because you usually sleep in the nude.”

 

“You’re kidding me, right?”

 

She shakes her head. She sure doesn’t _look_ like she’s pulling his leg.

 

“I never did before.”

 

She sits on the bed. The lower half of her robe parts as she does so, exposing one creamy thigh. Steve politely averts his gaze.

 

“It’s actually very practical.” She unwraps the towel, and starts to rub her hair dry. “Your body temperature is considerably higher than average. It’s what helped you survive in the north Atlantic. And when you haven’t been active during the day, you’re even hotter than usual at night.”

 

It sounds like it could be true. Steve can’t remember a time since the serum when he _hasn’t_ been active during the day, until now.

 

“If you think I’m making this up to take advantage of you, you can go and roll down the back window of the car,” she adds tartly.

 

“So these are the only pajamas I own?”

 

“You came home with a pair once, when we were first married, I think because you felt you ought to have some. I got more wear out of them than you ever did. If you sleep in anything at all, it’s just your shorts.” She stands and gives him another appraising once-over; he manages not to blush this time. “If you don’t want to wear those, would you mind terribly if I had them?”

 

“Don’t tell me you normally sleep naked too.” Steve tries not to think about that too hard. In a manner of speaking.

 

“My nightgowns won’t button up anymore,” she tells him—and looking at the slice of cleavage revealed by the V of her dressing-gown, Steve can easily believe it. “But that top looks like it might be a decent fit.”

 

Steve recalls a picture he saw once. “We can split ‘em,” he offers. “You take the top, I take the bottoms?”

 

“That would seem to cover all the essentials,” she says dryly.

 

He pulls the shirt off over his head without bothering about the buttons, and hands it to Peggy, who’s looking at him like she’s starving and he’s a steak dinner with all the fixings. She makes full, deliberate eye contact as she unties the sash of her robe, and Steve only barely manages to turn away in time.

 

*

 

Lying beside Steve in the darkness, Peggy silently berates herself. What on earth was she thinking? Parading around with her dressing gown half-open, and all that talk about sleeping naked. What did she expect—that he would fall to her feet in a swoon?

 

Which is a bad mental road to travel down, because it leads to thoughts of Steve on his knees, using his hands and his mouth to take her apart, methodically, the way only he can.

 

Arousal flares in her, inconvenient and unwelcome; one of the more bizarre side-effects of her pregnancy has been a dramatic increase in… amorousness. She’s already taken care of herself once in the shower, and just now she can’t possibly manage it quietly enough to evade super-hearing.

 

She knows he wants her. He hasn’t been able to stop staring at her. If he isn’t ready to take that step, then of course she’s willing to wait. But that doesn’t mean she’s especially thrilled about the prospect. She turns onto her side, closes her eyes, and waits for the hot flush of desire to cool.

 

Behind her, Steve is flat on his back, very still. She can tell by his breathing that he’s awake. Strangely, she misses him even more now that he’s lying beside her. The inches of space between them might as well be miles.

 

“Steve?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“May I ask a favour?” Her voice sounds small in her own ears.

 

“Fire away.”

 

“Could you—hold me?”

 

“Sure. I can do that. How do you want to…?”

 

She rolls towards him and nestles against his side, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder. He’s stiff at first, but then his arms wrap around her instinctively; perhaps some small part of him remembers how this is supposed to work. She relaxes into his body—so different from hers, but as familiar to her as her own.

 

He rubs her back; slow, gentle strokes. “Okay?” he asks.

 

“Perfect. Thank you.”

 

She feels a light press on the top of her head; he’s buried his face in her hair. The past few days have been exhausting for her, but she can’t imagine how impossibly lonely it must be for Steve. And yet, here he is, doing his best to give her comfort.

 

“Sleep well, my darling,” she says softly, and curls an arm around his narrow waist, anchoring herself to him.

 

“You too,” he whispers back.

 

*

 

Steve wakes with a start, sitting bolt upright, suddenly aware that there’s someone in bed with him. 

 

It takes him a second to recall why he’s in a bed at all, instead of an army-issue cot or sleeping bag. A few more seconds to piece together the rest.

 

He’s sweating under the light blanket—he kicks it off, squeezes his pillow back into shape, and flops onto his stomach, trying to get comfortable.

 

Beside him, Peggy is still and serene, in spite of his thrashing around. It’s a pretty solid mattress, nicer than anything he’s ever slept on; he could probably get up and do jumping-jacks without waking her.

 

He half-expected to wake up with her still curled around him, but it would seem that she’s one of those polite sleepers who keeps to her own side of the bed. Either that, or he’s just too warm for her.

 

Either way, it’s a relief; he’s trying to do right by her, but in the dark it would be far too easy for them both to pretend he’s the man she wishes he were.

 

He’s never been this close to her without being skewered by her gaze, so he takes the opportunity to look. Every line of her face is finely but decisively drawn, from the perfect hard lines of her cheeks and jaw to the delicate brush-strokes of her eyebrows and eyelashes. Her lips, softer without their daytime paint, are full and inviting, and suddenly seem very close to his.

  
She’s breathing a little fast, mouth slack, closed eyelids fluttering. Dreaming, he realizes. He sees her hands clench, her legs twitch, and wonders if he ought to wake her up. He vaguely remembers something about it being bad to wake a person in the middle of a nightmare, and he doesn’t want to do anything that might harm her or the baby.

 

She makes a tiny, needy sound, and arches her back a little.

 

So… not a nightmare, then.

 

Her hand catches his wrist and squeezes, hard. She’s stronger than he expected, and he likes that more than he should. She pulls him towards her, but he stays put and keeps his hand on the mattress between them.

 

Her breathing hitches, her wordless cries become sharper and higher-pitched—and then she gives a low groan, her grip on his arm easing. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

 

Abruptly, her eyes flicker open, landing on his face. He’s on the verge of apologizing—he knows he hasn’t done anything worth apologizing for, but he feels as though he’s invaded her privacy by even being here, watching her in such an intimate moment.

 

But before he gets the chance to say anything, though, she closes the distance and kisses him.

 

It’s a good kiss, and a long one, unhurried by any threat or imminent danger. She nibbles at his lower lip, teases his mouth open with the tip of her tongue. His hand finds the small of her back, and she winds her leg around his, pressing into him, rocking against his thigh. Steve feels his eyes roll back, and thinks he might be making noises.

 

Peggy’s the one who finally breaks it, their mouths parting with an audible pop. She’s still breathing fast, her chest heaving. “Steve,” she gasps. “Please.” But she isn’t pleading for him to stop.

 

He presses kisses along her neck and down, down, which is how he discovers that she’s already made short work of the buttons on her pajama top. Her skin is hot and soft under his hands; new, and yet familiar, like revisiting a novel he read years ago. She’s so beautiful, and she’s carrying a child they made together—a thought that makes his brain go fuzzy.

 

He isn’t sure about the logistics of their bodies fitting together, and he’s anxious about the baby, but he wants to please her, to make her feel good. And if she wants it too, there can’t be anything wrong in it. No one’s taking advantage.

 

“Help me,” he breathes. “Show me what you need.”

 

Without hesitation, she takes his hand and guides it between her legs. He presses up, gently, and she grinds down against his fingers, hot and damp through the fabric of her panties. At her urging, he pushes the cotton gusset aside and slips a finger inside her, then another. The sound she makes when he pushes in is almost enough to undo him entirely, but he doesn’t touch himself, or ask her to touch him. He wants this to be all for her.

 

Inexpert, but so eager, he mouths at her collarbone, her cleavage, her breasts, while she murmurs instructions—where to press, how hard, how fast. He picks it up quick, the motions coming naturally. She clutches at him and rides his fingers relentlessly, her nails digging into his scalp; the part of his brain still capable of conscious thought figures that, if his hair were long enough to pull, that’s what she’d be doing.

 

Instinctively, he bites her shoulder. She pants, “Yes—oh God— _yes_ ,” and then she’s kissing him again, hard, muffling her exclamations against his mouth as she shudders and comes apart.

 

As her breathing slows, he wraps his arms around her, careful not to squeeze too tightly. She makes a happy, sleepy sound and settles against him, skin to skin. Steve can’t help but wonder how the Rogerses ever get anything done with such a beautiful, monumental distraction always at hand. He doesn’t see how he could possibly want to do anything except this, ever again.

 

And then he feels something. A small but definite something, where Peggy’s belly meets his. Something crawling beneath her skin, trying to escape.

 

“Are you okay?” he asks, because he can’t imagine this being anything but excruciating from the inside.

 

“Hmm? Oh. That’s the baby’s foot.”

 

Steve rests his palm over the protrusion. “Is that normal?”

 

“Yes, he’s always waking up just as I’m going to sleep.”

 

“He?”

 

“Or she. Obviously we can’t know for certain. But I find it a bit rude to keep referring to the the baby as ‘it,’ after we’ve known each other all these months. And when it’s such a stubborn, demanding, and wildly irrational creature, naturally one assumes it must be male.”

 

Steve knows better than to argue with that.

 

Peggy’s fingers are light on his hip, flirting with the sensitive skin there in a way that suggests long familiarity. “That was lovely,” she says softly, and kisses his chest. “Just now. You were perfect.”

 

He swallows loudly, and holds his breath as her hand slips under the waistband of his pajama pants. Nothing in her movements is shy, or uncertain; she’s simply taking possession of what is rightfully hers.

 

“Shall we carry on as we’ve begun?”

 

She’s biting her lip and grinning at him, sly and secret—but the baby’s foot is still pushing against his hand and it’s suddenly too much, all at once. His head is pounding, he’s sweating and he can’t breathe, can’t focus, the room is closing in on him. He squeezes his eyes shut until everything stops spinning.

 

When he looks at her again, she’s watching him with a mixture of hurt and concern. He notices that he’s pulled his hand back.

 

“Steve?” she prompts.

 

“I’m… tired.” It isn’t what he wants to say, at all, but it’s the only thing he can think of that even comes close to covering it. “Sorry.”

 

“So am I,” she snaps, and turns over without another word.


	5. Chapter 5

Peggy wakes in a thundering mood with no one to take it out on.

 

Her anger finds a worthy target when she discovers Howard Stark in her kitchen—smoking a cigar, which she’s asked him repeatedly not to do in the house, and using a saucer for the ash even though there’s a perfectly serviceable ashtray three feet away on the sideboard. He’s also helped himself to coffee, if the mess on the counter and stovetop is any indication; the moment she steps onto the linoleum, coffee grounds crackle under the hard sole of her slipper.

 

_And_ , as if all that weren’t bad enough, he hasn’t left her any.

 

“What the bloody hell are _you_ doing here?” she growls, slamming the empty percolator down.

 

“Good morning to you too, sunshine.” He removes the cigar long enough to flash her a wolfish grin. “Long time no see. You look about ready to pop. When are you due again?”

 

Peggy snatches his cigar away and mashes it out on the saucer. “What do you want?”

 

“See, that’s what I love about you, Peg. You’re such a charming hostess. It’s those English manners.”

 

“ _What_ ,” she repeats, low and dangerous, “do you _want_?”

 

“Can’t a friend stop by to bring his friends breakfast?” He gestures to a pink box sitting on the counter, next to the coffee disaster area. Peggy inspects it: the label is French, and there are pastries inside.

 

It has the distinct air of a bribe, but she seizes one and shoves it into her mouth anyway. It’s still warm, and there’s soft chocolate in the middle. She gives an appreciative groan.

 

“Ladylike as always,” he remarks.

 

With her mouth too full to speak, she settles for scowling at him.

 

“I went to visit Steve. They told me he was discharged.”

 

“Mm.” She swallows hugely. “Yes.”

 

“You could’ve called, you know.” He sounds genuinely hurt.

 

“I did send a wire. I assumed you were home in California.”

 

“You know what they say about those who assume. Is he up yet?”

 

She takes a second, more measured bite, and finishes it before replying, “I’ve no idea where he is just now.”

 

Howard whistles. “Back a day, and he’s already in the doghouse? Married life. What a lark.” He pats his knee. “You want to sit right here and tell Uncle Howard all about it?”

 

Peggy rolls her eyes and polishes off the chocolate croissant. “I’d break your leg,” she retorts. “What did they tell you at the hospital? About his condition, I mean.”

 

“Not a thing. I’m not family, I’m not anybody. The doctor wouldn’t even accept a generous donation to the hospital in return for a peek at the chart.”

 

“Well, he… it’s a bit of a…”

 

Howard nudges the pink box along the counter towards her. She sighs, and dips into it; the baby needs to eat too, after all.

 

It’s easiest, she decides, if she just comes out with it. “He’s got amnesia.”

 

She watches the smile slide off Howard’s face. “He doesn’t know who he is?”

 

“He knows who he is, and who I am—and, I imagine, who you are. But he’s forgotten everything that’s happened since the _Valkyrie_.”

 

“Jesus.”

 

“Yes, rather.” The second pastry has custard in it, which she doesn’t care for as much, but she eats it just the same, licking her fingers afterwards.

 

“How’s he been?”

 

“Oh, very polite. Very helpful. Does as he’s told.” _Especially last night_ , the treacherous part of her brain adds. Keen to learn, eager to please; Steve had been all of that, and more.

 

“That’s terrible,” says Howard, apparently without a trace of irony. “I’m sorry, Peg.”

 

It occurs to her just then that she has a prominent bite mark at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, which she did not bother to conceal before raging her way into the kitchen—and that she is speaking with one of the few people she knows who would not believe the excuse that it was an oddly-shaped bruise.

 

Fortunately, a distraction rears its head in the window—literally. Steve is in the backyard.

 

They both spot him at the same time; Howard bounds over to the back door and throws it open. Exercising his talent for finding the least appropriate thing to say in any given situation, he calls out, “Hey, stranger! Long time, no see!”

 

Peggy sits down at the table, surreptitiously buttoning the collar of her blouse, while Howard hangs out the door, talking to Steve in a low voice. Steve says something that makes Howard chuckle, and steps inside.

 

He looks handsome and well-rested, which irritates her. In addition to his regrettable hat, he’s also managed to dig up his favourite weekend clothes: a pair of slacks with a pull on one side, and an odious shirt—slubby cotton and eye-watering plaid—that Peggy has already thrown in the trash twice over. Seeing it on him again, it’s evident that she wasted an opportunity in not getting rid of it while he was in hospital.

 

“Morning.” He’s looking at her uncertainly, obviously trying to puzzle out where he stands.

 

“Hello, darling.” Peggy aims for a cordial tone; she has never been one to air her dirty laundry in front of guests—even Howard, who runs his up the nearest flagpole at every opportunity. “You’re up early.”

 

“Yeah, thought I’d take a walk around the neighbourhood. Then I was trying to figure out where you—where we keep our lawn mower.”

 

“Oh,” says Peggy. “I loaned it to the Larsons, next door but one. Their son was supposed to come over and cut the grass, but he never did.”

 

“Life’s too short,” remarks Howard, as though he’s ever had to cut grass a day in his adult life. “You should get one of those motorized jobs. I’ll get it for your next anniversary. When is that again? August?”

 

“September,” say Steve and Peggy in unison. Steve meets her eye, then looks away quickly.

 

Howard, who has never been one to let awkwardness stop him from having a good time, announces, “I brought breakfast. And there’s coffee.”

 

“No,” Peggy corrects, “there is not.”

 

Apparently interpreting this as a suggestion, Steve squeezes past Howard to the counter and starts to make a fresh pot.

 

“You do have him well-trained,” Howard remarks.

 

Peggy nudges him with her foot. “Howard was just about to tell me what he’s doing in our kitchen.”

 

“Just call me your fairy godmother, Cinderella, because I’m here to get you an outfit and a ride to the ball. Bibbity bobbity boo.”  
  
“Bibbity  _what_? Are you having a stroke?”

 

“It’s what she says in the movie,” says Steve, whose unlikely love of musicals on film knows no bounds.

  
  
“I thought you’d be more excited. It’s not every day a gal gets a medal pinned on her chest. Not that your chest needs decorating, Peg.”

  
  
Steve has his back to them, but Peggy sees his head drop and his shoulders tense. He always did have a bit of a jealous streak when it came to Howard.

  
  
Peggy catches Howard’s eye, then cuts her eyes emphatically at Steve, but taking a hint has never been Howard’s strong point.

  
  
“More like defacing a national monument, if you ask me,” he continues, cheerfully oblivious. “The white peaks of Hampstead.”

 

Steve starts whistling loudly, which he generally only does when he wants to make it very clear he’s ignoring something.

 

“Howard, do shut up,” says Peggy irritably. “There isn’t going to be any sort of ceremony for this. I told Chet I wanted absolutely no fuss.”

 

“I know, and he listened. Fortunately, I’ve got more sense.”

 

Peggy feels a dire foreboding. “What have you done?”

 

He slaps a card down on the table. An invitation—engraved, naturally—to a party in Peggy’s honour, at a ballroom in Manhattan. 

 

“Tomorrow night? Howard!”

 

“With Steve up and about, I thought it was time to celebrate. I’m flying in all the old gang: what’s-his-name from Fresno, and the tall one, and that fellow with the hat.”

 

She throws up her hands. “Oh, _well_ , then!”

 

“What’s the medal for?” Steve inquires. Having stopped whistling, he’s been so quiet that Peggy momentarily forgot he was there—or rather, that he wasn’t already caught up on the state of affairs.

 

“It’s not a medal. It’s nothing. He just wanted to make rude jokes about my bosom.”

 

“She didn’t tell you about SHIELD?” asks Howard.

 

“That’s who we work for, right? The Strategic Homeland... alphabet soup?”

 

Peggy can tell he knows the whole acronym, but finds it ridiculous—but Howard, obviously taking it as a symptom of Steve’s memory issue, looks sympathetic.

 

“Yeah, pal, that’s right.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“Well, as of a few months ago, your missus is top banana. Head of the whole dog and pony show.”

 

“Really?” Steve looks proud, but not surprised. “Congratulations, Peggy.”

 

Howard nods enthusiastically. “Don’t you think that deserves a party?”

 

“I think it deserves whatever kind of acknowledgement Peggy wants.”

 

He’s obviously trying to be polite because of what happened the night before, and it irks her, to the point where she finds herself saying, “Actually, Howard, a party sounds lovely. Though I’m afraid we won’t be able to stay late.” Pointedly, she adds, “Steve gets tired rather quickly.”

 

Steve folds his arms and looks guilty, which doesn’t make Peggy feel any better.

 

After a lengthy negotiation, Peggy and Howard work out a plan: Peggy will leave with Howard now, and spend the night at his house in Manhattan, so that Mrs. Jarvis can find her a dress and any needed accessories. The following afternoon, Mr. Jarvis will collect Steve, valet him if needed (Peggy ignores Steve’s objections to this part of the plan), and drive him to the party. Whenever either or both of them are ready to call it a night, Jarvis will drive them back to Howard’s, and then home in the morning.

 

While Howard is outside having a smoke, and possibly scandalizing the neighbours, Peggy hastily packs an overnight bag.

 

She turns to see Steve propping up the door frame, hands in his pockets. There’s a worried little crease in his brow.

 

“You’ll be all right on your own for the night?” she asks.

 

“Sure.”

 

She folds in a couple of the comfortable smocks that have become staples of her wardrobe, then tosses in a handful of her underthings rather unceremoniously. “I’ll leave you Howard’s telephone number, in case there’s anything you need. And the number for the hospital.”

 

“So we’re just not gonna talk about last night?”

 

Peggy tucks her slippers into a corner of the bag. “I don’t really see the point, do you?”

 

“Okay,” says Steve, chastised.

 

She sighs. “I understand that this is difficult for you. It isn’t easy for me, either. And just now, I—I could stand to be looked after.”

 

He’s plainly surprised by her admission. It only serves to remind her how removed he is from the Steve she knows—the one who would fold her into his arms without hesitation, and say something funny yet comforting.

 

This Steve just stands there, frowning at her, as though she’s a battlefield map and he’s trying to frame an approach.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she tells him, zipping the bag closed decisively. “At the party. All right?”

 

He nods.

 

She carries her bag to the door and then, unthinking, stands on her toes to kiss his cheek. As she does so, he turns towards her, kissing her on the mouth instead. It’s only brief, but Peggy feels her pulse quicken; in spite of herself, she wants him.

 

Pulling back, she murmurs, “Don’t start anything you aren’t prepared to finish, Steve.”

 

He looks at her for a long moment, eyes dark with desire, before conceding defeat and taking the bag from her hand. “I’ll put this in the car for you.”

 

*

 

Left to his own devices, Steve rattles around the house, looking for something to do.

 

He plucks a dog-eared paperback from the bookshelf and reads for a while, pausing when he finds a snapshot someone has apparently used as a bookmark: Peggy standing on a white sand beach, wearing a two-piece bathing suit and white-rimmed sunglasses. She’s grinning widely at the camera, one hand pushing back her windswept curls.

 

He turns the page and tries to keep reading, but keeps flipping back to the little photo. The photographer caught her on the verge of a burst of laughter, he thinks; she looks confident, carefree, sexy. Frustratingly, there’s no inscription, not even a date or location. Nothing about the setting feels familiar to him—but then again, it’s possible he wasn’t even there when the photo was taken.

 

He tucks the book back into the shelf and wanders to the bedroom. The bed is neatly made, sharp military corners. Peggy’s perfume still hangs on the air, and he feels a hot rush of embarrassment and yearning—particularly when he sees the pajamas, innocently folded on the dresser. He recalls how eager she was to get out of them, and how smoothly the silk slid away, still warm from the heat of her skin.

 

He leaves the room quickly, shutting the door behind him.

 

He heads for the kitchen, but pauses in the doorway to the baby’s room, taking in the half-finished walls, the crib in pieces, the displaced drafting table and canvases.

 

Regardless of what he and Peggy wind up doing about this mess they’re in, the baby is still going to need a place to sleep, and it’d be pretty lousy of him to expect her to finish it all on her own. So he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.

 

He starts by clearing out all the art supplies, hauling everything up to the top floor. It’s tidier than he’d expected, in spite of the miscellany of furniture, Christmas decorations, and camping equipment already stashed up there.

 

He’s never put together a crib before, but it’s not all that difficult to puzzle out, with all the tools and pieces right in front of him. It’s a relief to have something concrete to do, an objective to work towards. He gets it almost right on the first try, too—except that the front railing slides up instead of down, turning that wall of the crib into a sort of makeshift baby guillotine. (He decides he’ll avoid using that description when he tells Peggy about it.) It takes some doing, but he manages to get the crib apart and back together again, the right way, without damaging any of the pieces.

 

Next, he looks around for the painting supplies. He finds them stashed in the closet nearby: two cans of paint, brushes, extra sheets to use as drop cloths, a small stepladder. He puts two coats on the remaining walls, careful around the edges.

 

By the time he’s through, the sun is low on the horizon, and his stomach is growling. He packs everything out to the garden shed, drops the rolled-up sheets in the laundry.

 

After rinsing out the brushes in the kitchen sink, he pokes through the fridge and cupboards, grazing aimlessly. He polishes off the stale cake and drinks an entire bottle of milk, in instalments, before it occurs to him that Peggy might want some when she gets home. He isn’t sure when the milkman will be by again, and wonders whether he ought to go to the store; he has a rough idea of where it is, and Peggy showed him the sugar canister where she keeps the housekeeping money, just in case.

 

In the end, he decides to live dangerously. If nothing else, it’ll be a conversation starter.

 

He goes back to the baby’s room to survey his work: in the dim evening light, with only the crib in the corner, the space looks dismal and sparse.

 

Without really thinking about it, he goes to the bedroom, unplugs one of the standing lamps, and relocates it. The warm glow improves the feel of the room substantially, but it’s still pretty bare.

 

He tries to imagine the ways they might want to use this room, the things that might make a baby feel comfortable and loved. He pictures sink baths, midnight feedings, diaper changes; himself in his shirtsleeves, folding laundry and heating up bottles, and Peggy, in her nightgown and slippers, cuddling a tiny bundle with fluffy hair and a red, scrunched-up face.

 

After some consideration, he carries a few items down from the upstairs storage: a comfortable-looking chair, a small white dresser, a wicker laundry basket, a little music box. He sets the chair in the same corner as the lamp, adding some cushions and a crocheted throw from the living room sofa.

 

Last but not least, he lines the crib with a soft blanket he finds in the linen closet.

 

He figures he’d better stop there: Peggy almost certainly has a plan for this room, and it dawns on him that she probably won’t appreciate his interference.

 

He realizes that he’s spent the past couple of hours in a kind of daydream, picturing himself and Peggy and the baby as a real family—something that isn’t likely to happen, unless he’s able to get his act together.

 

The reality of it hits him harder than he would have expected, though he can’t fathom wanting to mourn the loss of something he doesn’t remember having in the first place. He suddenly misses Peggy, with an intensity he can’t explain; if he could only talk to her, he thinks, this would all be easier.

 

She’d probably tell him he was being dramatic.


	6. Chapter 6

“Tell me something, Howard. Are you and I married?”

 

Slowly, Howard lowers the morning edition until he’s able to peer at her over the top of it.

 

“Not that I’m aware, Peg.”

 

“Good,” she says crisply, helping herself to another piece of toast. “I was starting to wonder. In that case, put down the newspaper and talk to me while we have breakfast.”

 

Howard makes a remarkable series of faces, but folds up the paper and sets it next to his coffee.

 

As always, the Jarvises have put on a magnificent spread, including many of Peggy’s favourites from home. However, her stomach isn’t quite hardy enough to withstand an onslaught of smoked fish and fried starches—appetizing though they may be.

 

She makes do instead with buttered toast and an endless supply of scalding-hot tea—refreshed at regular intervals by Mr. Jarvis, who, thankfully, knows how to make it properly. She’d had Steve fairly well trained, before the accident; he’s forgotten it all now, of course, and has gone back to bunging a teabag into a cup of tepid water and calling it a job well done.

 

“So what should we talk about?” Howard inquires. “Or did you just miss my handsome face?”

 

“Your eyebrows could do with a trim,” she tells him. Howard’s ego is the sort that requires a bit of air to be let out of it regularly, lest it become too inflated for the room. “But I’m curious to know what you make of Steve.”

 

“He seems all right to me. He’s talking and moving around, and that’s more than I ever expected to see—on this trip, I mean,” he amends hastily, and with more tact than she would have given him credit for.

 

Peggy drains the dregs of her tea. “Yes, I believe he’s quite well, physically. I meant more in terms of his personality.”

 

Howard has far too much self-confidence to ever appear awkward or ill at ease, but it’s clear that he doesn’t care for the question. He deflects with, “Try the bacon. Ana only makes it when you’re here. She thinks you need fattening up.” He licks the back of his coffee spoon and stares fixedly at it, surreptitiously raising one eyebrow, then the other.

 

“Howard.”

 

“Look, I’m not getting in the middle of whatever spat you two are having. You’ll just have to work it out in the trenches. Or the bedroom.” He manages to tear himself away from his own reflection long enough to wink broadly at her.

 

“Not bloody likely,” Peggy retorts.

 

This time, Howard’s eyebrows rise of their own accord. “So that’s not… not at all?”

 

“I’m not discussing it with you.”

 

He whistles.

 

“I just want to know if you think… if you can see any way that he might, one day—come back to himself.” To her absolute horror, Peggy feels herself welling up.

 

Howard, apparently more adept at dealing with crying women when he isn’t the cause of their distress, reaches over the table and hands her a cloth napkin. At the same time, he takes up the serving dish and tips an absurdly large quantity of bacon onto her plate.

 

Peggy gives a tearful snort.

 

“I think it’s a miracle he’s even alive,” says Howard. “Beyond that… I couldn’t say.”

 

“I know, you’re right, of course. We’ve been incredibly lucky.” She can’t quite mask the bitterness in her voice.

 

Jarvis is at her elbow, expertly decanting the gleaming silver teapot. His sympathy radiates, though of course he would never dream of interjecting. At times like these, she’s immensely grateful for his stalwart Englishness.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Jarvis.”

 

He nods. “My pleasure. Incidentally, Mrs. Jarvis has asked that I politely insist on the bacon.”

 

“I see. Well, we’ll take it as read.”

 

It strikes her, then, that Jarvis is the only person she knows who is likely to fully grasp the magnitude of what Peggy has lost. He and Mrs. Jarvis share the same especially close bond that Steve and Peggy do—or did, before the accident. Many of her married friends and neighbours have largely separate lives, and prefer it that way, regarding her as a bit of an odd duck for wanting to spend so much time in the company of her husband. She’d much prefer a quiet evening at home with Steve to a bridge party or a junior league meeting, and she knows that the Jarvises are similarly inclined.

 

“Speaking of Mrs. Jarvis,” she continues, “have you any idea what she has planned for me today?”

 

“I believe she’s laid out a selection of dresses and shoes for you to try, and procured some jewellery on loan for the evening,” he informs her, sounding rather gratified.

 

“Already? It’s barely half-eight.”

 

Jarvis spreads his hands wide. “She moves in mysterious ways, her wonders to perform.”

 

“You stole that from somewhere,” observes Howard, astutely.

 

“Very good, sir.” The butler somehow manages to be equal parts encouraging and patronizing.

 

Peggy does try the bacon. It really is very good.

 

*

 

Mr. Edwin Jarvis is about what Steve would have expected from his name and occupation. Which is to say, he’s the most English thing Steve has ever seen in his life, including the parts of it spent in London.

 

Jarvis rings the doorbell at 4:01 p.m., according to the clock in the hall—though Steve doesn’t doubt for a second that his watch says _exactly_ 4, and is precision-calibrated against Greenwich Mean Time.

 

Despite it being a perfectly clear day, he has an umbrella hooked over one arm. He deposits both this and his hat in the hall closet, indicating at least a passing familiarity with the house; he then takes a moment to politely introduce himself, which means someone, probably Peggy, has briefed him on the situation.

 

He shakes Steve’s hand with way too much enthusiasm before declaring, “Well. Shall we get on?”

 

Steve isn’t sure exactly what’s left for them to get on to. He’s clean, and dressed in what he assumes is his best suit—it being the newest of three found hanging in their closet—he’s wearing a silk tie, he’s shaved, and he’s made an effort to plaster down his too-short hair with Brylcreem. All in all, he doesn’t think he looks too bad.

 

It’s obvious that none of this impresses Jarvis in the least; Steve can’t recall most of his experience living with Peggy, but over the past few days, he’s already had a taste of that uniquely English aura of quiet disapproval.

 

“What’ve you got there?” asks Steve, pointing to the garment bag he’s carrying.

 

“Mrs. Rogers happened to mention that you didn’t own any formal wear, so I’ve taken the liberty of bringing a selection of items.”

 

“Peggy put you up to this?” Steve doesn’t bother to hide his irritation. If she wanted him to wear something specific, then she should have said so before she left, instead of sending Howard’s butler to bust his balls by proxy.

 

“Not at all,” says Jarvis hastily, his brow creasing. “It was Mr. Stark’s idea—though, naturally, I’m _thrilled_ to be of assistance.”

 

Steve gestures to the suit he’s wearing. “This isn’t formal?”

 

“Well, there is formal, and then there is,” he makes a dramatic flourish, “ _evening_ formal.”

 

Steve shrugs.

 

Jarvis looks pained.

 

“If it’s a problem, I’ll wear my Class As.” He can’t imagine anyone objecting to that. And he remembers Peggy having a pretty favourable reaction to his dress uniform: that night at the bar, she was poised as if to pounce, dark eyes drinking him in.

 

He wouldn’t mind her looking at him that way again.

 

Jarvis, meanwhile, is drawing his narrow shoulders up like he’s spoiling for a fight. “Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark was _very_ —”

 

“Okay. Okay.” He takes the garment bag, and turns to lead the butler into the house. “And ‘Steve’ is fine.”

 

*

 

Jarvis doesn’t just make Steve change his clothes; he renovates him from the top down.

 

After making him rinse out his hair and scrub his face, Jarvis gives him a proper hot shave, the closest Steve has ever had. Steve draws the line at the fancy perfumed aftershave; it smells a little too much like Howard—which makes sense, but there’s a limit to how much of a sacrifice Steve wants to make.

 

Next, they dig into the garment bag. He’s brought a couple of everything, just to be sure, and he has Steve put things on inside-out so he can tailor the fit. Two of the shirts are tight over Steve’s shoulders; the one that fits is billowy everywhere else. Jarvis goes to work on it with needle and thread and an ornate pair of sewing scissors, tightening up the sides and back.

 

He does the same to the trousers, pinning and stitching them to fit Steve’s slim hips. “Fortunately,” he observes around a mouthful of pins, “the cummerbund hides a multitude of sins.”

 

The jacket gives Jarvis the most grief, but eventually they land on a silhouette and a sleeve length that doesn’t seem to cause him physical pain. It’s a closer fit than Steve is used to, but Jarvis assures him that it’s the very latest in “Continental” style.

 

Steve has to admit, when it’s all said and done, that Jarvis knows his stuff. When he puts it on right-side-out, the tuxedo fits like a second skin, and is more comfortable than a pair of pajamas. Steve has never had a suit tailored before, but he’s fairly certain that it usually takes longer than an hour.

 

There’s a lot of fuss over his bowtie and cufflinks, both on loan from Howard’s extensive collection. It’s apparent that Jarvis knows him well enough, at least, to know that he prefers as little flash as possible.

 

Next, Jarvis produces a comb and a bottle of hair tonic, and whips what little hair Steve has into fighting shape. He also combs and trims Steve’s eyebrows—which is a little weird, but no stranger than putting on makeup for the USO show.

 

Last but not least, Jarvis buffs his dress shoes to a glossy shine. Steve feels faintly ridiculous, letting the butler slip the shoes onto his feet, as if he isn’t a grown man capable of bending down to do it himself. But he’s fought Jarvis at almost every turn, and figures he can let him have this one.

 

His transformation complete, Steve inspects himself from all angles in the vanity mirror. He looks like a million bucks. He wonders if Peggy is getting the same treatment from Mrs. Jarvis, and what the end result will be. He tries to imagine what she will say when she sees him, what he’ll say back. Maybe there’ll be music at this thing, and they’ll finally get to dance together—

 

Except, he thinks, forcing himself back to ground level, they must have done that lots of times by now. Peggy is well past the honeymoon stage; she’s not about to go all starry-eyed over him just because of a borrowed monkey suit and a decent shave.

 

Jarvis, seeming to divine his thoughts, assures him, “I believe Mrs. Rogers will be greatly impressed.”

 

“Come on with that,” says Steve, grinning at himself in the mirror all the same.

 

*

 

Jarvis drops Steve at the front entrance to the ballroom, a grand old Beaux-Arts building.

 

The party seems to be well-attended. A few unfamiliar faces nod and smile politely at Steve as they make their way inside, but no one stops to talk, which is a relief.

 

His borrowed trousers are so streamlined that he has no room to wedge his hands into his pockets, leaving him at a loss for what to do with them. He’s still trying to decide between crossing his arms or resting his hands on his hips when a shiny red roadster turns the corner, gliding to a stop at the curb.

 

Howard hops out of the car, then turns back with a flourish to assist his date—only, she isn’t Howard’s date, though she’s every inch as glamorous as the girls he usually squires around town, and then some.

 

Peggy is dressed to the nines: satin evening gown, gloves, jewellery, heels. The dress is a shimmering royal blue that brings a rich warmth to her fair skin: a halter neckline, cleverly concealing the bite mark Steve had noticed earlier, but concealing very little else. Not that it’s particularly risqué—the amount of cleavage on display, while generous, is only a fraction of the cleavage Peggy actually possesses—but the whole of her back is bare, as well as her shoulders and arms. Steve is struck once again by how much more sleek and radiant she’s grown since the war. Her hair is piled high on her head, an artfully constructed nest of curls, exposing the column of her neck and giving emphasis to the perfect straight line of her back. The dress’s high waist and billowing skirts neither diminish nor emphasize Peggy’s roundness, but merely acknowledge it as a fact of her physique, as worthy of appreciation as any other.

 

Steve’s first coherent thought is that Howard made an uncharacteristic understatement when he said that Mrs. Jarvis was good at finding clothes on short notice.

 

Clearly, Mrs. Jarvis is a _genius_.

 

Peggy is ascending the steps, laughing at something Howard is saying, and Steve feels a kind of itch behind his eyes—

 

_Peggy is laughing, standing in the rolling waves, clutching desperately at the front of her wet bikini top. The halter is broken, or maybe just untied, Steve isn’t sure._

_He frames the shot and clicks the shutter._

 

_“Put down the fucking camera and help me, you bastard!” she cries out, between gales of laughter. Her fair skin is freckled by the hot Mediterranean sun, her hair a mess of tangles from the salt spray. She’s gorgeous, and entirely his. As long as they both shall live._

_He wants to live right here, in this moment, forever._

 

_“What’s that about my mother?” he calls back. The beach is empty for miles, one of the advantages of borrowing Howard’s vacation house for their honeymoon._

 

_“Steve!”_

 

_He peels off his shirt and wades into the surf, but when he gets there, he snatches the top from her and tosses it aside, and she leaps into his arms—_

 

 

Steve opens his eyes, unaware of having closed them. He can still feel the heat of the midday sun, taste the salt and sunscreen on his lips. His head feels like it’s been squeezed in a vice.

 

Peggy is close by, watching his face carefully.

 

It was the same bathing suit from the snapshot. A memory, or just a vivid fantasy? He isn’t about to ask her now, in front of Howard.

 

“Hi,” he says, because he really should say something, and the only other thing he wants to say to her in that moment is  _I love you_.

 

For just a second, she looks disappointed. Then it’s gone, and she’s taking his arm. “Whenever you’re ready, Captain.”


	7. Chapter 7

The ballroom is tastefully decorated, and the dinner is fantastic—not that Steve had expected any less. He doesn’t recall ever having been to one of Howard Stark’s parties, but Howard doesn’t strike him as the type to do anything on a small scale.

 

Peggy, as the guest of honour, is seated at the high table, with Howard and Colonel Phillips. Whoever was responsible for seating arrangements has concluded (correctly) that Steve would be more comfortable out of the spotlight, and has placed him at a round table closer to the middle of the room, along with Dugan, Falsworth, Morita, and Jones. They’re tables for six, so there’s an empty seat—the only evidence to suggest that Howard’s party planner isn’t completely omniscient.

 

Steve joins the table to hearty handshakes all around, and an inappropriately long hug from Dugan, who’d been the one to recover him after he’d been shot. Steve can’t imagine what that must have looked like.

 

It’s fun getting caught up, if a little disorienting. Morita shows off snapshots: his smiling wife, their three tiny girls, the swimming pool in their sun-soaked backyard. Jones is based in Paris—working as a translator, living with a dancer from the Folies Bergère (the boys all badger him for not bringing any snapshots of his own). Falsworth is officially a civilian, though he occasionally does a little light work for SHIELD on contract.

 

Like Steve, Dugan’s been with SHIELD since the start; he’s been leading the Commandos during Steve’s absence. He delivers regards from the rest of the crew, mostly names Steve doesn’t know, and Steve nods, trying for an engaged expression.

 

There’s a little bit of ball-busting, but in general, they’re easier on Steve than usual. He wonders what they’ve been told, and by whom.

 

When the waiter serves the wine, he pours a glass for the extra place setting. No one seems to notice; even after they’ve all drained their glasses, no one touches it. Steve starts to say something, but then he realizes: it isn’t an oversight. The empty seat is meant for a fallen friend, who ought to be there.

 

It’s a nice gesture, but it leaves Steve feeling raw, exposed. It reminds him that Bucky’s death, still so fresh in his mind, was actually years ago. There must be a marker by now, somewhere. Peggy probably knows where it is, but he isn’t about to ask her tonight.

 

It’s a few minutes before he can regain enough equilibrium to pay attention to the joke Dugan is telling—the punch-line of which apparently involves a priest, a donkey, and a pair of wooden shoes. He manages to laugh along with everyone else.

 

After dinner, there are speeches. Howard’s is showy, and borderline inappropriate, but does helpfully inform Steve that Peggy’s new title is Director of Operations. He can’t help but feel a swell of pride, for all that he still finds the acronym a bit over the top. He suspects Howard, who has the born showman’s talent for giving things clever names.

 

To Steve’s surprise, Phillips makes his way to the podium next. His distaste for public speaking is legendary; he’d managed to get out of accepting a single award or commendation during the war. Clearly, he’s not about to let this opportunity pass him by; he’s even got cue cards, which he taps ceremoniously on the podium, clearing his throat reproachfully at the few people still talking.

 

“When I met Carter in ’42,” he begins, “she had a smart mouth, a hot temper, and was as stubborn as a mule. In short, she was a pain in the ass. She wanted on the project, and we only had one opening, so I hired her to do exactly two things: make my coffee, and drive my staff car. Well sir, she felt her talents were being wasted. So she must’ve figured, if she did those two things badly enough, I’d find her something else to do. And she was right.”

 

He punctuates the statement with a long pull of his cigar.

 

“I got tired of having to strain my coffee with my front teeth, so I hired myself a secretary, and put Carter in charge of whipping Steve Rogers into shape. I guess she liked that job, since she decided to continue doing it pro bono after the war ended.”

 

He has to pause for a burst of appreciative laughter, most of it from Steve’s table. He frowns at them over the top of his glasses before consulting his cards again.

 

“If you told me, ten years ago, that the best right-hand man I ever had would be a woman, I’d’a laughed in your face. But to this day, I never met a man who can do what she does. Now that I’m retiring, it’s finally safe for me to admit that she’s smarter, faster, and a better shot than I am. And I can’t think of a better person to steal my job.”

 

He turns to look at Peggy, who acknowledges him with a fond smile.

 

“Congratulations, Director Rogers. My only hope is that when that kid comes along, it’s as much of a pain in the ass as you are.”

 

“Even more so, I imagine,” Peggy calls back, “given who its father is.”

 

The boys at Steve’s table cheer. Dugan socks him in the arm.

 

Peggy wraps things up with a few remarks of her own, thanking both Howard and Phillips, and encouraging everyone to enjoy the rest of the evening. She’s clearly at home in the spotlight: her speech is gracious and witty, her smile luminous. Everyone in the room is captivated, and it’s easy to see why.

 

When the applause starts, Steve is the first to stand up.

 

*

 

The fellows wind up congregating near the bar; the drinks are complimentary, and Dugan seems determined to make Howard regret his generosity.

 

Steve can’t stop glancing over at the dance floor, where Peggy is doing a slow circuit in the sedate embrace of Colonel Phillips. He’s tempted to cut in, but she looks like she’s enjoying herself. Phillips doesn’t, but then, he’d never admit to enjoying anything.

 

Dugan, peering past him, remarks, “Knocking up the boss. That’s a smart career move. Wish I’d—”

 

“Reconsider finishing that sentence,” says Steve, cordially.

 

“She kick you out of bed yet?” Morita inquires. “I wound up sleeping on the floor for the last few months. All three times. Four inches of the mattress to myself, and Helen still says I’m crowding her.”

 

“Why the floor?” asks Jones. “Don’t you have a couch?”

 

“Sure! But he’s gotta be there to turn her over during the night so the kid bakes evenly.” Dugan elbows him, grinning. “Right, Cap?”

 

The rest of the fellows chuckle, and Steve shrugs good-naturedly. “I don’t know about that one. Maybe English wives are different than the American kind.”

 

“Naturally,” says Falsworth dryly. “Ours are self-raising.”

 

“Have you picked out the names yet?”

 

Steve has absolutely no idea. He covers with, “We’re naming it after you fellas. Timothy Gabriel James James Chester Rogers.”

 

“That poor little girl,” says Dugan, mock-solemn.

 

“Peggy thinks it’ll be a boy.”

 

“Women know,” Morita affirms. “Helen gets it right every time. Her mother has this chart, and what you do is, you look at the parents’ birth months, and the month of conception—”

 

“You’re not serious,” Jones interjects.

 

“Three girls in four years, friend. _Catch_ me not being serious about this.”

 

“Okay, but astrology?”

 

“Look, it’s not a goddamn horoscope, it’s scientific fact—”

 

Everyone jumps in at once, making it impossible for Steve to follow what’s being said. The lights and the noise are starting to give him a headache. He closes his eyes and rubs at the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the pressure.

 

The band strikes up again, a vaguely familiar tune, and he feels the prickle at the back of his eyes—

 

_Peggy’s dress, a vibrant emerald green, is made to swing—as is the figure beneath it, lithe and limber, her hips keeping time as she guides him through the steps._

_He’s sparred with her enough times to be able to predict how her limbs will move, the ways her body will twist in his grasp; only now, of course, her objective isn’t to break the hold._

_They move in sync: it may be their first dance, but they have been dancing around each other, in a manner of speaking, for over a year now._

_She’s radiant, pink-cheeked and glowing, a sparkle in her dark eyes. It could be the warmth of the room, or the champagne, or the exertion, but the looks she keeps shooting him suggest that it's something more. That she might, in fact, be just as gone on him as he is on her._

_Just as Steve is getting the hang of it, the band shifts into a slow number: drowsy horns, and a lilting melody that washes over the dance floor. All around them, the energetic tumble melts away, couples embracing, their pace slowing to a dreamy rhythm._

_Steve hesitates, the old self-consciousness rearing up unexpectedly. They’ve been on two dates already—have kissed, and a little more than that—but this is still very new territory. This is staking a claim, in the middle of a crowded hall, for all the world to see._

_But Peggy just tucks herself against his chest and places his hands where she wants them. And then they start to move, one more pair of sweethearts in the sway._

_After a few beats of gazing up at him, starry-eyed, she lays her cheek against his shoulder. He’s forever charmed by their height difference, the way the top of her head fits so perfectly under his chin._

_It still surprises him, how natural it feels to hold her._

_“Having fun?”_

_Her reply, muffled against his lapel, is lost—but she presses into him with a full-body sigh of contentment, which is all the answer he needs.  
_

 

He opens his eyes to find everyone watching him expectantly.

 

He throws up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Don’t look at me, fellas. Morita’s mother-in-law’s guess is as good as mine.”

 

Falsworth and Jones exchange looks, and Steve knows he’s missed a step somewhere.

 

“Don’t you think you oughta…” Dugan jerks his head in the general direction of Peggy, who’s now on the far side of the room, dancing with Howard. The two of them have had their heads together the entire evening. Steve doesn’t know what to make of that.

 

“I oughta what?” he snaps. He doesn’t mean to, but he’s so tired of only knowing half the story—of being on the periphery of his own life.

 

If Dugan’s at all fazed, he doesn’t show it. “Doesn’t matter,” he says evenly.

 

“You okay, Cap?” asks Morita.

 

He isn’t. He feels dizzy and sick to his stomach, his head is throbbing, and he can barely hear himself think.

 

“Gonna get some air,” he announces, and walks away without waiting for a reply.

 

*

 

Whatever complaints Peggy might have about Howard, he is, at least, a decent dance partner. He can hold a conversation while keeping time, and she can count on him not to stomp on her feet, maul her about, or squeeze her bottom.

 

It almost makes up for the fact that she wants to knee him in a delicate area for what he’s done.

 

“What _possessed_ you?”

 

“What? ‘Sentimental Journey’? You and Steve always used to go nuts for this song. I figured it might help snap him out of it.”

 

Peggy peeks over Howard’s shoulder at her husband. He’s standing by the bar with his friends, giving absolutely no sign that he recognizes the song. There’s no reason he ought to; neither of them had ever particularly cared for it, before an evening at the USO made it memorable.

 

“It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.”

 

She’s struck, again, by how incredibly attractive Steve is in evening dress. Left to his own devices, Peggy knows that he will invariably choose the baggiest, boxiest thing on the rack, stemming from the days when all of his clothes were a loose fit. Mr. Jarvis, however, has put him in a sharply-tailored jacket, emphasizing his broad shoulders and trim waist. This plays well with the corresponding close lines of the trousers, giving him a long, lithe silhouette, without making it look as though he’s bursting at the seams. He’s freshly shaved, and Jarvis has even managed to do something reasonable with his too-short hair.

 

The overall effect is… maddening.

 

“You couldn’t have told Mr. Jarvis to aim for merely presentable, instead of…”

 

“Sex on legs?” Howard supplies helpfully.

 

“Quite.” Peggy has to tear her eyes away from him. It’s absurd—she’s mooning over _Steve_.

 

“You can’t blame Jarvis for that. He’s used to working on me.”

 

“Ah, yes. So he usually has to put in a lot of effort to _get_ to presentable. Which explains why he overshot the mark.”

 

“Hey, be nice! Cinderella needed a Prince Charming, so the fairy godmother obliged.”

 

Peggy rolls her eyes. “The prince’s charm wears off when you’ve picked his socks up off the floor. What did it cost?”

 

Howard gives his head an emphatic shake. “It’s on me. Besides, Jarvis has been dying to dress Steve ever since he wore that seersucker jacket to my birthday party.”

 

“I’m surprised Steve went along with it. He’s particular about his clothes, for someone with no discernible fashion sense.”

 

“He did it because he thinks it’ll make you happy.”

 

“He told you that?”

 

“Did he have to? Look at him.”

 

Peggy glances in the direction of the bar; Steve seems to be happily chatting, and isn’t displaying any particular investment in her happiness or lack thereof.

 

“I don’t get it, Peg. You’re married. Both of sound mind. You’re in the clear, morally and legally. And you can’t get knocked up. What’s the problem? He’s not, uh… damaged anywhere?”

 

“No.” She’d had ample proof the other night that everything was in working order.

 

“You sound pretty confident of that,” says Howard, with surprising insight. “I thought nothing was going on.”

 

Peggy deliberately treads on his instep.

 

Howard just carries on with, “I say get him alone somewhere and saddle up. It can’t be that tricky, even with the—extra cargo.”

 

“You needn’t be delicate. You aren’t going to shock me if you say the word _baby_.”

 

“I might shock me, though. I don’t know if I’m prepared to accept that you’re really off the market. I can work around a husband. I’ve taken husbands in small doses over the years. I’ve developed an immunity. But a kid is getting too complicated. We might have to end this thing before someone gets hurt.”

 

“You’re an ass, Howard.”

 

“Is that any way to talk to the guy who threw you this beautiful party?”

 

“Who used me as an excuse to throw _himself_ this beautiful party,” she corrects.

 

He grins. “So you admit the party is beautiful.”

 

“If I must.” Peggy surveys the room, getting her bearings. “Would you mind dropping me off by the W.C. after this song?”

 

“ _Again_?”

 

“I’ve got a creature the weight of a bowling ball squatting directly on top of my bladder. Don’t pout like that, you’ll get wrinkles.”

 

“I’m not pouting, I’m wincing. Remind me never to get pregnant.”

 

On the opposite side of the room, Steve has vanished from view, and the fellows are shooting each other concerned looks. Dugan catches her eye and waves her over.

 

“Change course,” says Peggy briskly. “Towards the bar.”

 

Howard gives an approving nod. “Now you’re talking.”

 

*

 

It takes a bit of time, factoring in a necessary bathroom break, for Peggy to track down her husband. She eventually finds him alone in the coatroom, staring defeatedly at a blank wall.

 

“Steve?”

 

He pivots on his heel, looking guilty.

 

“Are you feeling all right?”

 

He nods. “I thought I saw Howard come in here.”

 

“You’re leaving.” 

 

It’s not a question, but he answers anyhow. “Yeah. I was hoping he’d be able to see you back.”

 

She is determined not to let him ruin an otherwise lovely evening. “Well, of course,” she says airily. “There’s no reason you ought to stay. As a matter of fact, you needn’t bother about me. If Howard’s otherwise occupied, I have a friend I can knock up when the party’s over.”

 

“You have a friend you can  _what_?”

 

“Knock—oh, for heaven’s sake, it means _wake up_! What other meaning could it possibly have? Are we arranging to play tennis? Am I physically capable of any other kind of knocking up? Honestly, Steve, I do wonder about you sometimes.”

 

“Your friend won’t mind you stopping by so late?”

 

He’s obviously wondering whether the friend is male or female. Peggy has the childish impulse to lie about it, just to get his back up; in the end, though, she takes the high road.

 

“She said I could call round any time tonight if I felt like it. She lives just near here—and she’s an actress, so she keeps late hours. I can stay the night with her.”

 

“So… so then I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

 

“Yes, I suppose so,” she says crisply.

 

“Enjoy the rest of your night.”

 

“Thank you, I will.”

 

He raises a hand to her face, his fingers skimming lightly over her jawline. In response to the familiar gesture, Peggy tilts her head to the side automatically, presenting her cheek for him to kiss. The funny thing is, he does, without a moment’s hesitation.

 

“What was that for?” she asks. Their faces are still very close, and she feels flushed, feverish.

 

“I don’t know,” he says helplessly. “We were saying goodnight. I just… felt like doing it.”

 

“Instinct,” she murmurs.

 

“Or muscle memory.” 

 

A sudden heat courses through her, equal parts irritation and desire. “ _Must_ you always have the last—”

 

He cuts her off with another kiss, a proper one.

 

She responds in kind and pulls him closer, fists clenched tight on his lapels. His hands skim over her shoulders and down her bare back; she shivers with delight, feeling touch-starved.

 

He drops his head to kiss the side of her neck. “You make me crazy,” he tells her, his voice rough. “You know that?”

 

She brushes her hand over the front of his trousers; the evidence of his claim is difficult to miss. “Do I, darling?”

 

“Don’t talk like you don’t do it on purpose.”

 

“I’ll talk however I like,” she breathes, and feels his hands tighten on her hips. She loves it when he gets worked up like this; she trusts him, absolutely, to know his limits and hers. She palms him through the fine fabric and asks, “What are your _instincts_ telling you to do now?”

 

He groans, his eyes falling closed.

 

She plants her hands squarely on his chest and backs him into the far wall, ducking behind a full rack of heavy fur coats and pulling him in after her. 

 

He’s pliant, letting her maul him about until they’re situated in a dark little corner. The space is narrow, and could stand to be swept, but she isn’t about to waste this chance. 

 

She pushes his jacket down off his shoulders, and he lets it fall to the floor. As she tackles the buttons on his trousers, he stares at her drunkenly, open-mouthed.

 

“All right?” she inquires. “Not too fast?”

 

He kisses her frantically, pressing her into the wall.

 

Satisfied that he’s fully on board, she grabs him by the shoulders and hauls herself up. If it weren’t for the extra weight, she could easily support herself in this position; things being what they are, she needs his help.

 

“Put your hands on my arse.” She punctuates the request by biting his earlobe, something that never fails to drive him mad.

 

Obediently, he slides a hand under her bottom, supporting her easily and allowing her to get her legs around his hips. Thus anchored, she leans back against the wall and rucks up her skirts, giving him better access.

 

He strokes along her thigh reverently, running his fingertips over the lace hem of her underpants. She recognizes the look on his face, remembers how fascinated he was by all of this the first time. But she’s determined not to feel maudlin about this—not now, with him right here, hard and willing.

 

“Rip them,” she urges.

 

“What?”

 

“Rip them off. I need you inside me, Steve.” Which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say to one’s own husband in a dusty coatroom, but she’s beyond caring.

 

He looks, by turns, aroused, startled, then mortified. “I,” he starts, before falling silent.

 

For a moment she thinks she’s pushed him too far, asked too much—but then she realizes.

 

_This_ happened the first time, too.

 

“It’s all right,” she tells him, and gestures for him to let her down. He lowers her to the floor and steps away, almost tripping over his trousers in the process.

 

“I’m sorry.” He looks so stricken that she wants to laugh, but she doesn’t know if his poor ego could stand it. She’s overcome with a wave of tenderness for this utterly impossible man; not quite the Steve she married, but still _her_ Steve, entirely.

 

She cups his face in both hands, kisses his cheeks. “Shh. It’s all right, my love.”

 

Which is when she hears a voice calling, “Peg?”

 

Howard, naturally.

 

Peggy stifles a curse, setting herself to rights as best she can. She knows she must look a sight, and decides just to brazen it out, to give Steve a little more time to collect himself.

 

She steps out from behind the coats, casual as can be. “Yes?”

 

“Hey, there you are.” He’s looking rather merry, for someone who promised not to drink to excess; there’s lipstick on his collar, and more—not the same shade—along his jawline. “Think you’ll be okay on your own for a little while?”

 

“Making friends, are we?” She wishes she didn’t sound quite so short of breath.

 

“I always do. The guys said Steve was a little under the weather, looks like he went home.”

 

“I see.” Peggy contrives to look surprised.

 

“Don’t worry, though, I’ll make sure you get back in one piece.”

 

“I’ll be all right,” she assures him. “Don’t fuss. Go and enjoy the party.”

 

He gives her an appraising look. “What’ve you been up to in here, pal?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“You’re panting like a racehorse, your lipstick’s all smeared, and your dress is hiked up in the back.”

 

“I’ve been rummaging for my coat,” she tells him loftily. “There’s usually a girl here.”

 

“She’s freshening up,” replies Howard, far too authoritatively. “Listen, Peg, I’m not one to judge, and I know Steve hasn’t been giving you what you need—”

 

Steve pops up behind the coat rack. His short hair is standing up in hackles, and he’s wearing more of Peggy’s lipstick than she is.

 

“I’m gonna take Peggy back in a cab,” he announces, poker-faced. “As soon as we figure out which one of these is hers.”

 

“Well, I’ll give you a running start.” Howard is grinning from ear to ear. “She wasn’t wearing a coat when we got here.” Before Peggy can muster a reply, he pulls a set of car keys from his pocket and tosses them to Steve. “I’ll get Jarvis to come and roll me home when I’m through. Have a nice night, kids.”


	8. Chapter 8

Driving Howard’s stylish roadster is more fun than Steve expected.

 

There isn’t much he misses about the field, but there have been times in the past week where he’s wished he could just get on his motorcycle and go tearing across a strip of rough terrain. This is pretty close—though with Peggy in the passenger seat, he’s careful to observe the speed limit.

 

It’s a nice evening, with the city glittering around them, and a mellow, jazzy tune on the radio. But when he glances over at Peggy, she has her arms tightly crossed, her hands tucked in close to her body. It occurs to him for the first time that there’s a definite chill in the night air.

 

At the next stop light, he shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over her like a blanket, tucking the lapels around her shoulders. She flashes him a dazzling smile, and he gives in to the impulse to brush his fingers lightly over her cheek. He’s amazed at how easy and comfortable it feels—and at how her face softens at his touch, her eyes large and liquid.

 

Then the light changes, and he puts both hands back on the wheel.

 

She observes, “You still drive like an old woman. That’s comforting.”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Rogers, I didn’t know you were on a schedule,” he shoots back.

 

She’s quiet, and he thinks he might have gone too far. He isn’t quite sure what compelled him to say it.

 

“You haven’t called me that since before the accident,” she says softly. “You used to, though. All the time.”

 

“It’s been… it keeps happening. I know to do things, but I don’t know how, or where from.”

 

“It’s a good sign,” she says, and his heart breaks a little at the eagerness in her voice.

 

“Could be.”

 

“You’re trying not to get your hopes up, though.”

 

“It’s not that. I… I don’t want to disappoint you.”

 

She lays her hand on his leg. He knows it’s meant to be reassuring, but his body responds anyway. There’s a part of him that _knows_ her hands—that craves their softness and their strength, their most intimate touch. Even though he’d most likely just embarrass himself again.

 

“I’m afraid I’ve been rather selfish,” she says, in a choked sort of voice.

 

“No, Peggy, that’s not what I—”

 

“I have,” she continues, more steadily. “I’ve needed you desperately, and it’s been difficult to accept that you’re… not entirely back. That you may never be the man you were. But it isn’t fair of me to expect so much of you. And I wonder if—if it isn’t a mistake for us to keep—”

 

He makes an abrupt turn onto the first side street he can find, and pulls the car over. It’s a pretty poor parking job, but he doesn’t care. He can’t drive and have this conversation at the same time.

 

“Peggy,” he says hoarsely, “I love you.”

 

She gives a tearful laugh. “I know, darling. But as far as you know, that’s the first time you’ve said it!”

 

“It doesn’t make it any less true,” he insists. “I love you, and I want to make this work. Even if I never get my memory back. Even if I wash and you dry. Even if I take you out on dates pushing a baby carriage. Even if you have to explain to me how to make love to you until I get it right.”

 

“You’re mad.”

 

“Probably. I don’t care. I know I’m the one who got the better part of this deal,” he says, recklessly, “because I get to fall for you all over again.”

 

She grabs him by the collar, dragging him down. Their mouths collide, a mashing of lips and teeth, but then it evens out, and it’s _so_ good. He’s leaning on his hip, the steering wheel digging into his other side, but he barely feels it because her hand is on his leg again—not comforting this time, but kneading the muscle of his thigh, inching upwards. Her other hand is at the back of his head, stroking the short hairs against the grain, making him shiver.

 

He leans down to kiss her shoulder, and feels her hands tighten in response. He does it again, suckling at the spot, biting. She’s rocking a little, squeezing her legs together. Without thinking, he slides his fingers beneath the neckline of her dress, cupping her bare breast in his palm. He strokes her nipple with the pad of his thumb and she arches her back, giving a soft cry that goes right through him.

 

By the time her questing hand finds what it’s looking for, he’s so hard it’s almost painful. She hums appreciatively, and goes to work on the buttons of his trousers—getting them undone one-handed, without looking. He feels lightheaded, the soles of his feet tingling.

 

“Do we really—” He’s actually short of breath, gulping air before he can get the words out. “Do we really want to do this in the car?”

 

“Do _what_ , Captain Rogers?” Her fingers are light on the back of his neck. “What is it you think we’re doing?”

 

Cheekily, he gives her breast a squeeze. “You tell me.”

 

She grins, and squeezes him back through his shorts.

 

“You’re a menace,” he tells her.

 

She presses a last, quick kiss to his lips before pulling away, leaving him to button up. “That’s why you married me, darling.”

 

As he starts the car, she scoots closer on the wide front seat, wraps his jacket around herself, and rests her head on his shoulder.

 

Steve thinks it’s nice that at least _one_ of them can be comfortable on the drive.

 

*

 

Howard’s “pool house” is more along the lines of a guest cottage, one that’s only slightly smaller than their house. It’s also where furniture that’s fallen out of favour with Howard goes to die, so the rooms are a bit crowded, the décor an eclectic mix of old world baroque and mid-century modern.

 

Steve, who was making some very welcome overtures in the car, is back to following her lead now, walking after her into the bedroom.

 

Mr. Jarvis has clearly paid a visit: the bed is made with fresh linens, and the bedside water bottle has been replenished. Peggy’s nightgown is neatly folded on the pillow on her side of the bed, and Steve’s overnight bag is just as ceremoniously arranged on his side. (Peggy has never been able to determine how Jarvis knows which is which. They’ve certainly never discussed it.)

 

It’s clear by the way Steve’s gaze tracks her that his interest hasn’t abated, just his nerve. The air between them is heavy with anticipation.

 

“Would you like a drink?” she inquires. “Howard keeps the bar well-stocked.”

 

“Thanks, no.”

 

“I was thinking of a swim before bed. It’s a salt-water pool, no chlorine. Howard designed it himself. Very relaxing. And it’s heated.”

 

“Okay,” he replies, his shoulders sagging slightly. It’s plain she’s going to have to be more direct.

 

She stands before her reflection in the mirror and beckons him over. “Get me out of this dress,” she says, matter-of-factly, lifting her arm.

 

Obediently, Steve attends to the tiny row of hooks and eyes at her side. She watches him in the mirror: head bent to the task, lips parted in concentration. He’s lovely in that moment, in a way that makes her yearn to see him come undone. She feels peculiarly possessive: she wants to remind him that he’s hers, in a way that he is no one else’s.

 

For his part, Steve is clearly thinking along the same lines, because he asks, “Who got you into it? If you don’t mind my asking.”

 

“Howard, naturally,” she teases. It isn’t true, of course, but she craves his reaction.

 

He doesn’t disappoint. “You say ‘Howard’ one more time, and I swear to God.”

 

“You’ll… what?” She turns away and lets the dress fall to the floor, pooling around her ankles. All she’s wearing underneath are a pair of silky drawers; a brassiere wouldn’t have worked with the plunging neckline, and she finds a garter belt and stockings to be a towering inconvenience at this stage of her pregnancy.

 

Whatever retort Steve was about to make is lost.

 

Peggy steps over to the bed, feeling both gorgeous and powerful—feelings that have been in short supply of late.

 

Like all of Ana Jarvis’s work, the gauzy nightgown is both practical and refined: comfortable enough to sleep in, but still delightfully feminine, with touches of cutwork embroidery at the hem and neckline. It seems a shame to waste it on a swim, particularly when she doesn’t intend to wear it very long, but needs must: the pool itself is below any and all sightlines, but the area around the pool is clearly visible from the main house, and she doesn’t fancy giving anyone a show.

 

She pulls the nightie on over her head and then, with only minimal awkwardness, shimmies out of her underpants. After deliberating for a split second, she flings them playfully at Steve, who’s watching her openly now. He catches them, one-handed, just before they would have hit him in the face.

 

“Come along,” she says, huskily.

 

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

 

She smoothes the soft cotton over her body, and raises an eyebrow at him.

 

He nods.

 

The air outside raises goosebumps on her bare arms and legs, but the water is perfect. It’s marvellous to be weightless, after lumbering about all day long. She floats on her back, the moon and stars revolving slowly, the white fabric of her nightgown billowing around her. Her belly and breasts bob above the water’s surface, pale islands in an ocean of warm, gentle waves.

 

Steve appears at the pool’s tiled edge, wearing only his boxers. In the slivers of blue light reflecting off the water, his body is sculpted marble, smooth and flawless. He drops down and slides into the pool, the displacement of the water rocking her away from him.

 

She kicks her legs in the air and claps the water, half stretching and half just showing off. “Lovely, isn’t it?” She’s aware of how much the moonlight becomes her, and that her thin nightgown isn’t leaving much to the imagination; in fact, she’s counting on it. “So refreshing.”

 

“Yeah,” he agrees, and reaches for her ankle, towing her towards him on the surface of the water. “Lovely.” He’s looking at her toes, which are sporting the same glossy red as her fingernails.

 

“Mrs. Jarvis was kind enough to paint them for me. I can barely reach them nowadays.”

 

“I’m surprised you still go to the trouble, when you don’t get to enjoy them.”

 

“My husband enjoys them.” She flexes her foot in his hand, coquettishly, and wiggles her toes. “Red is his favourite colour.”

 

He drops a kiss on the top of her foot. “Only since he saw it on you.”

 

“Charmer,” she says softly.

 

His eyes meet hers, and he smiles. He grasps her firmly by the shoulders, and she closes her eyes in anticipation—and then he pushes down, dunking her.

 

She comes up sputtering, crying out, “You utter _bastard_!” 

 

His laughter echoes off the tile. “You expect me to pass up a chance like that? You ought to see your face.”

 

She parts the sodden curtain of her hair and scowls at him. “You could have drowned me.” She punctuates the statement with a pathetic cough.

 

“If you pass out, I’ll give you the kiss of life,” he assures her, with a cocky grin.

 

She tries to kick him, but he’s too fast, dodging and pinning her leg under his arm. She twists, splashing, and manages to get both legs wrapped around his waist, and then he’s pulling her into his arms.

 

It’s easier to hold herself up when the water is doing half the work, but her wet nightgown is heavy, and too much fabric to be between them. He helps her pull it over her head, pitching it past the deck of the pool and right into the hedge beyond.

 

His bare skin on hers is scorching hot, his kiss salt-flavoured; it reminds her of their honeymoon, and she feels almost delirious with want.

 

“I have an idea,” she tells him.

 

“Got a few of those myself,” he murmurs against her lips. For the third time that evening, he goes straight for her shoulder, pressing a kiss against the fading love-bite. He doesn’t seem to be aware that this isn’t how first-time lovers behave. When they were first together, he’d spent weeks charting every inch of her topography, an intrepid explorer staking his claim, learning which spots to revisit and which to avoid. Somewhere deep in his mind, that map must still exist, she thinks.

 

With a heroic effort, she pulls away, and points to the tiled edge of the pool. “Sit up there.”

 

He looks puzzled, but does as she asks—biceps flexing as he lifts himself up, rivulets of water trickling down his chest. He stretches his arms over his head, and she’s so caught up by how beautiful he is that she momentarily forgets her objective.

 

To her delight, he catches her eye and grins. He knows exactly what he’s doing to her.

 

“Shorts off, please.”

 

He grapples with the sodden cotton in a way that would be comical, if she weren’t so wildly impatient. She yanks them down his hips and tosses them away, not caring where they land. He’s watching her, hands resting on his thighs, looking sheepish.

 

“Towards me,” she urges, and he obeys. “Right to the edge, that’s it.”

 

Then she pushes his legs apart and takes him firmly in hand.

 

His reaction is instant and incredible: he holds his breath, and his head tips backward, eyes closing. She gives him a slow stroke and he exhales hard, a flush spreading over his chest and down to his navel. She loves him most in moments like these—moments that only she can claim, in which he gives over to her utterly and completely.

 

She strokes him again, twisting her hand a little, the way she knows he likes. His mouth drops open; he leans back and angles his hips upwards, legs in the water, feet braced against the wall of the pool. With him perched on the tile lip like this, the pool is exactly the right height for what she has in mind (a fact that she tries not to let herself dwell on too much).

 

“The first few times we made love,” she says, adopting a blithe, conversational tone, “you were very sensitive. Liable to go off like a shot. Sometimes when I’d barely touched you. It was frustrating, to say the least.” She continues working him with her hand, quicker now, and he gives a sweet little sigh of relief. “But then we discovered that if you came several times in a night, you’d last longer each time.”

 

He’s obviously figured out where she’s headed with this, because his cock twitches in her hand. She licks him, daintily, just a taste.

 

“Oh, God,” he groans.

 

“All right?”

 

He’s incoherent, babbling. “Peggy,” he manages at last. She takes that as affirmation, taking him into her mouth.

 

As she suspected, he can’t hold out long—he tries, but she knows all of his shortcuts, and uses every one. She gives him everything she’s got: lips, tongue, and teeth, and both hands into the bargain.

 

Because he’s Steve, he does warn her when he’s close; but Peggy, always mindful of her obligations as a houseguest, disposes of the evidence of their misconduct in the most expedient manner possible.

 

Once he’s recovered, he slips back into the water and into her embrace, bending down to let her wind her arms around his shoulders. He lifts her up and kisses her deeply, heedless of his own taste in her mouth, and for the first time in days, Peggy isn’t wondering or worrying about Steve—about whether he’s eating enough, sleeping enough; about whether she’s making him upset or uncomfortable; about whether her body in its current form excites or repulses him; about whether the look in his eyes is dawning familiarity, or merely polite interest. All she’s thinking about now is how wonderful it feels to be in his arms, to touch and taste him, to love him and be loved by him.

 

And with every soft look, every gentle press of lips or hands, she can see herself the way that he sees her: a gorgeous flower in full, ecstatic bloom, providing shelter for the most tender fruit.

 

It isn’t long before she feels his readiness, the increasingly insistent press of him where she’s already slick and waiting. She uses her legs to draw him closer, and murmurs encouragement; beneath the water, her thighs are trembling in anticipation.

 

“Yeah?” he breathes.

 

She nods.

 

She watches his face as he slides in—sees his eyes glaze over, his lips part. He grips her hips and pulls her flush against him; he feels so splendid, fills her so perfectly that she gives a deep, satisfied sigh, her eyes drifting closed.

 

And then he’s still. Everything is still.

 

“You can—Steve, darling. You can move.”

 

He nods, but she doesn’t think the words are getting through. She tries to demonstrate, rolling her hips a little, but it’s a difficult angle, and his hands are still holding her tightly. He looks astonished, intoxicated.

 

“Steve,” she says, more forcefully. “ _Move_.”

 

He pulls back, just a touch, and pushes in again, far too slowly.

 

She gives a frustrated groan and kicks the back of his thigh, as though she’s riding a horse; he snaps his hips in response, finally seeming to get it. His thrusts are irregular, still too shallow, and nowhere near hard enough for her liking—but it’s _Steve_ , and that fact alone soon has her gasping and shuddering, clenching around him in a way that quickly tips him over the edge as well.

 

Afterwards, the water feels cold, as does the night air. Peggy starts to shake, her teeth chattering, and she clings to him, seeking warmth. He lifts her out of the pool and carries her back to the house, cradling her close to his chest. She’s perfectly capable of walking, of course, but just now she isn’t about to object.

 

Inside, he sets her on her feet and folds her into a large, soft towel. He finds a second towel and uses it to squeeze the water out of her hair, before quickly wiping himself down. She ruffles his damp hair, making the ends stick up, dragging her fingernails lightly over his scalp. He kisses her forehead, her cheeks, the end of her nose, before finally landing on her mouth.

 

Deepening the kiss, she walks them backwards towards the bed, letting the towel fall to the floor as she dives beneath the crisp sheets, pulling Steve in after her.

 

He obviously remembers his lessons from the other night, and wastes no time putting them into practice. He kisses her throat, the points of her collarbone, her breasts, while his hand works its way between their bodies. His artist’s fingers mould her flesh, transform it, expose the secret she’s been so careful to keep: that, as her pregnancy has progressed, she’s found herself in a state of near-constant arousal. Every part of her is tender, aching to be touched. Even in sleep, her body, in all its strange, tide-driven swellings, is forever making love to itself.

 

Keeping his hand between her legs, he rolls her gently onto her side, facing away from him. His erection presses against her bottom, and she cants her hips, allowing him to slide in smoothly. Without any obstructions between them, she’s able to move on him the way that suits her best, meeting his thrusts in counterpoint. He’s surer in his movements now, less inhibited—and it strikes her, belatedly, that he must have been holding back for the baby’s sake.

 

As predicted, he’s able to last a good deal longer than the evening’s earlier efforts. She loses track of how many times, how many ways he finds to bring her to the edge. She’s reduced to single words, then just syllables, and finally nonsensical shouting, before he curls his body around hers and comes, hard.

 

“That was rather inspired,” she remarks, afterwards, reaching back to pat him in the general vicinity of his cheek. “What made you think of it?”

 

He kisses her shoulder. “Your needlepoint book.”

 

“My—? Oh, yes.”

 

“Where’d you find something like that?”

 

She can’t help being amused by his assumption. “Me? I’ll have you know that I’m not the only one in our household who enjoys creative needlework.”

 

He waits.

 

“I ordered it by mail,” she admits. “On the advice of a happily-married friend. I gave it to you on our wedding anniversary. The first anniversary is paper, you see.”

 

“Cute.”

 

“It’s all right, as a starting point. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the earlier chapters.”

 

“I didn’t exactly read it,” he confesses. “Just looked at a few of the pictures.”

 

“Well, don’t bother. It’s a lot of drivel about how wives should maintain their appearances for their husbands, keep a clean home, and avoid backseat driving. I fail to see how that has anything to do with sex.”

 

“I’d find it very sexy if you’d quit backseat driving,” Steve retorts.

 

She smacks his hip, making her palm sting.

 

“I meant what I said in the car,” he tells her. “I want to make this work.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And I love you.”

 

“My darling.”

 

He pulls her to him more snugly, and she turns in his arms, tucking her head under his chin. Her fingers find the perfect little divot at the small of his back—one of his softest spots, and a personal favourite of hers. It’s been far too long since she’s had so much of his bare skin; she wants to wrap herself up in him and luxuriate.

 

“I hate to ruin the moment, but I should go get my skivvies out of the pool.”

 

He moves to sit up; she tightens her grip on him, burrows deeper.

 

“No,” she tells him.

 

“No?”

 

“Stay right where you are.”

 

“You’re serious? You’re not letting me go?” He’s grinning, she can hear it.

 

“I know, it’s disgusting.” The words are muffled by his chest. “I ought to be ashamed of myself.”

 

He chuckles softly. “I kinda like this side of you.”

 

“Don’t get used to it. It’s the baby.”

 

He says nothing.

 

Peggy is suddenly reminded of how fragile it all is—of how much distance still lies between them, to be carefully and painstakingly navigated. A profound exhaustion steals over her, and she has to push herself to keep speaking.

 

“Steve. I didn’t mean…”

 

“I got it,” he assures her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

His big arms tighten around her, just the way she likes, and she closes her eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve is drawn up into wakefulness by Peggy’s fingers, which are lightly tracing designs on his upper thigh.

 

Her bare leg is draped across both of his; her belly and breasts press against his side, warm and soft. It all feels amazing; he moans, his voice rough with sleep, and pulls her closer.

 

“Good morning,” she breathes, her foot dragging up and down his leg with definite intent. Her hand is on his hip, tantalizingly close to where he wants it. “It’s nice to see you’re _up_ at last.” She emphasizes the word in an obvious double entendre. “May I—”

 

“Yeah,” he gasps.

 

He feels her laugh. “You haven’t heard the question.”

 

“Doesn’t matter. Anything you want.”

 

Without further preamble, she sits up, swinging her leg over him. He can’t help but think that there’s something to this whole sleeping naked thing. Convenience, for one.

 

She eases down onto him, a hot slide. He rests his hands on her thighs at first, fascinated by the shift of muscle under his palms as she starts to rock, smoothly, her movements languid. When she takes his hand, he already knows where she needs his fingers, even before she guides them there.

 

He touches her the way she likes, and she picks up speed, and then he’s too awed to do anything but watch and hold on as she rides him to her own completion—twice—and then his.

 

Afterwards, she stays splayed across his chest, making noises of unabashed pleasure as he runs his hand up and down her back, counting the bumps of her spine. He wants to memorize every last inch of her.

 

“You lied,” he says.

 

“Did I? When?”

 

“You said you had enough self-restraint not to climb on top of me in the night.”

 

“Yes. You’ll notice I waited until morning.”

 

“Nice way to wake up.”

 

“It is. I’ve missed it.” She’s planting lazy kisses along the ridge of his collarbone. “You still taste like salt,” she murmurs, breath hot on his skin. “Delicious. I could lick you all over.”

 

He’s too relaxed to be self-conscious. “I wonder what you taste like,” he muses.

 

She lifts her head up, pushing back the mess of tangled waves, and grins at him. “You’re welcome to find out.”

 

He sits up, rolling her onto her back. She lounges in the nest of pillows, splendid and radiant, a round Renaissance nude. For a second, Steve is completely still, torn between wanting to touch her, and just wanting to see her in all her glory.

 

“What is it?” she inquires, moving to sit up. “Are you all right?”

 

“I’m fine. I just… I don’t want to look away from you, even for a second.”

 

Colour blooms in her cheeks. “My darling,” she says, in that tone she seems to save just for him, the one that he’s coming to understand really means _I love you, too_.

 

He takes his time getting her where he wants her, kissing and caressing his way down her body, until her soft moans start to have an impatient edge. At last, he’s kneeling on the floor at the end of the bed, her legs draped over his shoulders; her hand spans the crown of his head, gentle but insistent.

 

A fusillade of knocks at the door.

 

“Anyone alive in there?”

 

“ _Fuck off_ , Howard,” says Peggy, under her breath.

 

Steve echoes the sentiment, but can’t help laughing at her delivery. He presses a kiss to her inner thigh and calls out, “We’re just getting up.”

 

“Fantastic, I’m coming in!”

 

“No!” they shout, in unison.

 

Steve scrambles for his overnight bag. He pulls on an undershirt, then climbs into his slacks without bothering with shorts. Peggy, meanwhile, has grabbed his dress shirt from the night before, and is tugging it on over her head. She gets back into bed to arrange the covers modestly around her before gesturing imperiously to the door.

 

Steve opens the door a crack and peeks out. Howard is still in rumpled evening clothes, his tie unknotted and hanging askew. Steve can smell bourbon, cigars, and women’s perfume, in that order.

 

“Salutations, early birds!” he announces, blithely pushing past Steve. 

 

Steve wants to protest, but he doesn’t really feel he has the authority to kick Howard out of his own pool house. 

 

Peggy, clearly not bound by any such compunction, bellows, “For God’s sake, Howard! Were you born in a barn? I’m not dressed!”

 

“I’m not surprised.” He tips her a cavalier wink. “Jarvis found your nightie in the hedge. Good to see you two are getting along.”

 

Peggy straightens up and stares him down defiantly. “I wanted a swim and I didn’t have a bathing costume.”

 

Steve, meanwhile, is stuck standing awkwardly behind a chair, in an effort to preserve what’s left of his dignity. It isn’t helping that he didn’t have time to put on underwear. Or that Peggy is looking especially ravishing in his dress shirt. Or that Howard’s mention of last night is evoking vivid memories of their encounter in the pool. He takes a few deep breaths and tries not to look at her directly. 

 

He’s halfway through reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in his head when he realizes Howard is asking him a question.

 

“Huh?”

 

“I said, when did you see Cinderella?”

 

All Steve can recall is the vaguest impression of a darkened picture palace. “I don’t know.”

 

“You definitely saw it, though?” Howard is watching him with an uncomfortable intensity. “You remember it?”

 

“Most of it, I guess.” The harder he thinks about it, the more it feels like there’s a long needle jabbing him between the eyes. “I remember… singing mice?”

 

“You remembered the fairy godmother, too. And you were whistling that song.” He sighs theatrically. “Am I the only one around here who pays attention to anything?”

 

“Howard,” interjects Peggy, with the terrible, exaggerated politeness that inevitably precedes a shouting match. “If you do have a point, kindly endeavour to come to it sometime today.”

 

“My point is, that movie didn’t come out until after the war. But Steve  _saw_  it. And he  _remembers_  seeing it!”

 

Steve glances over at Peggy, who looks as startled as he feels.

 

“I’ve been getting these…” he starts awkwardly, then stops. He doesn’t really want to share the particulars with Howard. “Flashes of things. It started last night. I wasn’t sure at first, but now… I think they could be memories.”

 

Peggy is indignant. “Why on earth didn’t you say something until now?”

 

“There was a lot going on,” he says, hoping she’ll take the hint.

 

She apparently does, colouring up dramatically.

 

Fortunately, Howard—who normally never misses an opportunity to crack an off-colour joke at Peggy’s expense—is busy congratulating himself on his discovery.

 

“I’ll let you kids put your faces on,” he says at last, with a magnanimous wave. “Breakfast on the terrace in ten minutes?”

 

“Have pity on Mr. Jarvis,” says Peggy. “Half an hour.”

 

Howard’s grin makes it clear she’s fooling no one, but he concedes, “You’re on.”

 

And then he’s gone.

 

But so is the mood, or at least, the illusion of privacy. Steve doesn’t like the thought of everyone knowing their personal business, for all that Peggy has been walking around in public wearing the evidence.

 

He unbuttons his pants, a bit awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious about being naked in front of her in broad daylight. She seems to understand, giving him her back until he’s dressed, though she doesn’t seem to care whether he watches her.

 

“Have you remembered a lot?” She addresses the question to the buttons on her smock.

 

“Just pieces. Specific moments.”

 

“Do they come on all at once, in a flash? Or gradually, so that you don’t really notice?”

 

“Flashes. I get a splitting headache right before, and I feel dizzy and sick after. The clearer the memory, the worse the hangover.”

 

Peggy touches his shoulder in concern. “We’ll make you an appointment to see the doctor.”

 

Steve doesn’t like it, but he knows better than to argue.

  
“The first one was when I saw you in that dress last night. I remembered… we were at the beach. I was taking pictures, and you—you lost your top in the water. I think it was our…”

 

“Go on.”

 

“Our honeymoon?”

 

She nods. “You and that damned camera. We got it for a wedding present, and you refused to put it down for even a second.”

 

“I’m pretty sure that’s an exaggeration.”

 

“Barely. There was at least one roll of film that I barred you from developing.”

 

Steve can feel his ears turning red.

 

“So that was the first one. What were the others?”

 

“Sentimental Journey. Dancing at the USO.”

 

She makes a rueful face. “Of course it would be that. Too beastly hot. It’s difficult to look properly ravishing, when one keeps sweating all of one’s powder off.”

 

“You were beautiful,” he assures her earnestly.

 

“Of course I was,” she retorts. “I said it was difficult, I didn’t say it couldn’t be done.”

 

Steve chuckles.

 

“You said there was one more?”

 

“Yeah, when you—when we were…” He waves his hand vaguely in the direction of the pool.

 

She waits. She’s clearly not about to let him off the hook.

 

There’s just no other way to say it. “Being inside you felt familiar.”

 

“I should hope so, by now.” Her lips have a wry little twist that makes him want to bite them. He gives in to the impulse, kneeling across the corner of the bed to kiss her.

 

She returns the kiss with breathless enthusiasm. “Nice to know I’ve still got a tiny bit of sex appeal.”

 

“More than a tiny bit.” He squeezes her ass to emphasize the point. “Tons.”

 

“Don’t think for a moment I wasn’t fishing for that,” she replies, preening.

 

“You had fun last night?” He knows she did. He was there, after all. But he wants to hear it.

 

“Mm, yes. Fantastic. Like a second honeymoon.”

 

Inwardly, he can’t help cringing a little.

 

“Not what you wanted to hear,” she observes, and lays a cool hand against his cheek.

 

“I’m just—I don’t—” Frustrated, he exhales hard and starts again. “I wish we were both at the same place with this.”

 

She kisses him again: softer this time, sweeter. “I know. Just now, though, I can’t help but be grateful for what we have. You’re home, alive and well. The rest can be worked out as we… Steve?”

 

The room tilts and sways around him. Her voice sounds far away, tinny, like a bad long distance connection.

 

“Steve, what’s wrong?”

 

He squeezes his eyes shut, the pain so bad he can’t talk through it. He can’t breathe. Darkness—

 

_His head is wrapped in something. It’s warm, and smells of cigarettes and stale sweat. A coat. He’s on his knees, hog-tied. Above him, a voice, shouting in German—the words are taut, the speaker anxious. He talks fast, a lot of nonsense about purpose and glory, about how he’s going to be a hero. He’s very young._

_The click of a pistol being cocked._

_Steve pulls hard against the knots that bind him, but the rope is strong stuff, HYDRA tech. The more he struggles, the tighter it seems to get. His thoughts are fast, but circular: this isn’t supposed to be happening, this isn’t part of the plan, there has to be a way out._

_If he can just get to his boot, there’s a small knife that the operative missed during his search. He can cut himself loose, he can—_

_This isn’t part of the plan, the kid is going against orders, maybe Steve can talk him down, maybe he can stall until backup comes, maybe—_

_If he can just get to his fucking boot before the gun goes off, if he can—_

_When he gets home he’ll quit being so goddamn stubborn about names, Peggy can name the baby whatever she wants, of all the hare-brained things to argue about. She’s gonna kill him when she hears about this._

_This isn’t part of the—_


End file.
